Nucleo-transfer in amphibians by Tom Elsdale, 1964

What is this?

This is a movie produced in 1964, which describes the procedure to achieve nucleo-transfer in the frog egg (nowadays referred to as ‘cloning’). The demonstration is performed by Dr Tom Elsdale, a distinguished embryologist who mostly worked at the MRC Human genetic unit in Edinburgh. Elsdale had spent some time in the USA to learn this experiment after the founding paper of the field was published by Briggs and King in 1952. This technology was further used by John Gurdon to carry out the first and Nobel prizewinning cloning of animals by using nuclei from adult differentiated cells. This movie echoed a publication describing the approach and published in 1960 by Elsdale, Gurdon and Fischberg in JEEM, the former name for ‘Development’. It was likely used for teaching purpose, as well as to facilitate the learning of this difficult manipulation by fellow scientists.

Where was this found?

This movie was in the archives of the Geneva Zoological Institute (Station de Zoologie Expérimentale) in Switzerland. In the 70s, this department was chaired by Michael (Mishka) Fischberg, who had been John Gurdon’s PhD supervisor in Cambridge, UK, and senior author of the paper mentioned above. Fischberg was a great scientist and a good man who had collected and developed the largest collection of Xenopus species in Europe to study developmental and evolutionary questions. In 2006, as a chair of this department, I had the difficult task to close this Institute (where I had been a student) and move it to more modern buildings downtown. Fortunately, the movie had been kept by Charles Thiebault, a close collaborator of Mishka Fischberg.

How was this taken?

This is a 16mm film, which was recently transferred onto a CD format. The 16mm camera must have been positioned on top of binocular objectives, yet it is not shown as to how this was done in the recorded demonstration and hence the exact recording set up is unknown (any comment on this?).

Why should people watch this movie?

This movie illustrates how classical embryology was carried out 60 years ago and gives an idea of how pioneers in the field could overcome the many difficulties caused by experiments as fundamental as nucleo-transfer, for example. You will appreciate the many small tricks used here and there, the extraordinary timer, the pre-AI animations and summary, as well as Elsdale’s experimental precision, despite being one-eyed due to an accident when he was a kid. A special mention is given to his pullover and to the brilliant soundtrack starting with croaking frogs.

References

Briggs R, King TJ. Transplantation of Living Nuclei From Blastula Cells into Enucleated Frogs’ Eggs. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1952 May;38(5):455-63. doi: 10.1073/pnas.38.5.455. PMID: 16589125; PMCID: PMC1063586.

Elsdale TR, Gurdon JB, Fischberg M. A description of the technique for nuclear transplantation in Xenopus laevis. J Embryol Exp Morphol. 1960 Dec;8:437-44. PMID: 13726553.

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