# DNA
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dna/649574
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 7, 2013, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dna/649574 "2013-02-07T10:36:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Gavin\_B\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gavin_B_1)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2013, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dna/649574/1 "2013-02-07T10:36:55Z")
If I had, say, a lock of someone’s hair, or a fingernail clipping, would I be able to extract enough DNA to clone them?
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2013, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dna/649574/2 "2013-02-07T10:56:34Z")
I don’t think from a fingernail clipping unless they really scratched themselves and got blood and tissue on it. For hair, it depends on whether or not it includes hair roots; cut lengths of hair won’t have DNA.
Note that this all presumes technology we don’t have; right now we don’t have human cloning technology - I understand they technique differs somewhat from species to species. And the cloning techniques we presently use require live cells I believe; they insert a living cell nucleus into an ovum that whose original nucleus has been removed. DNA from a dead cell wouldn’t work with present techniques.
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### Author:  [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dna/649574/3 "2013-02-07T14:04:07Z")
**Der Trihs** has it right. Fingernails and hair are each comprised primarily of a structural protein, keratin, which is excreted from cells.
For cloning we would need nuclear DNA from cells which has not been degraded. Whether that comes from a living or dead cell isn’t so much the issue, in theory.