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When cells divide they need to split up their cellular material. This becomes slightly problematic when dealing with the DNA. If a dividing cell simply split its chromosomes in half, the two daughter cells would only have half a complement of DNA. When the two daughter cells subsequently divided then the resulting four cells would only have a quarter of the DNA, etc. Obviously, it doesn't work this way.

The problem is circumvented through a process called "chromosome replication" in which, during cell division, the chromosomes are duplicated so that each daughter cell receives a full set of DNA.

All cells in the human body, except for the germ line (those cells responsible for become the eggs in females and the sperm in males), use a chromosome replication process called mitosis.