Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) is a laboratory technique for creating an embryo from an unfertilized egg cell and a somatic cell nucleus. This process is fundamentally used to create a genetically identical copy of an existing organism, which is known as reproductive cloning. While SCNT can be a step in therapeutic cloning or genetic engineering, its direct and most prominent application in practice has been the reproductive cloning of animals to create individuals with desired traits or to conserve endangered species.