Homework Help: Social Studies: World Issues: Cloning

What if humans could fly? What if we could live for 300 years? Or what if we could breathe underwater? What if there were several other people identical or just like you? Sounds like outrageous possibilities, right? Well maybe not for long. Scientist have successfully cloned mice, a monkey, a bull, and sheep. What's next humans? In the next few paragraphs I'm going to talk about and educate you about cloning, it's probably not what you thought it was.

Dolly is the cloned sheep that was mentioned in the paragraph above. She is the world's first mammalian clone. (Not counting identical twins, which are technically clones too.) Many well educated scientists didn't believe it was possible, but on December 6th, 1997, Dr. Ian Wilmut and his team (The Roslin Team) created Dolly. Dolly is from the Finn Dorset sheep. However it failed 276 times! If you want to understand the failures you need to know more about the way the researchers worked. The Roslin team knew that embryo transfers don't always work, the embryo may die for many reasons, and a nuclear transfer could introduce ways for different things to go wrong. Well they placed the new cells into the ewes oviducts, then the recollected them to see how they were developing. Out of 277 they recovered 247, some may have died and decomposed or some may have just been lost. (That means they only lost 11% of the embryos) Then they examined the embryos under a microscope, they then discovered that only 29 out off 247 had developed. (That means 88% had not developed) They then placed the 29 embryos into 13 ewe's. Some ewes got one while others got 2 or 3. Like all mammals the hormones have to adopt the embryo at a particular stage of development. If the embryo and the ewe are not balanced then the embryo will not be planted in the ewe's uterus. And this is a hard thing to do, explained the Roslin Team, that is why only one ewe got pregnant while the other 12 did not. And that is the one who gave birth to Dolly! Wilmut and his team accomplished this feat by transferring nuclei from various sheep eggs which the natural nuclei had been removed by microsurgery. Once the transfer had been completed the recipients eggs contained a complete set of genes, just as they would have been fertilized by sperm. The eggs were then cultured for a period of time before being implanted into sheep that carried them one full term, one of which culminated in a successful birth. the resulting lamb was, as expected, an exact genetic copy, or clone, of the sheep that provided the nucleus, not of those that provided the egg. The key to there success seems to be that Dr. Wilmut starved the mammary cells for five days before extracting their nuclei. This maneuver froze the cells in a quiesant phase of their division cycle and may have made their chromosomes more susceptible to being reprogrammed to the initiate the growth of a new organism after the nuclei was transferred into the egg. Wilmut's work was supported by a biotechnology company, PPL Therapeutics in Edinburgh, which plans to use the patented cloning technique to produce animals that will secrete valuable drugs into their milk. Other researchers engaged in similar work.

Animal cloning is a lot different than human cloning. And has the least consequences. However people are still trying to clone the first human. Dr. G. Richard Seed was the first to propose this idea of human cloning. He proposed his theory on National Public Radio (NPR) and considered using the technique similar to Dolly. Dr. Seed is trained as a nuclear physicist with a degree from Harvard. He has had previous experience the reproductive area but no formal training there. Now here is an example on how he wants this procedure to hypothetically work. He would have three women Linsy, Barbara, and Mary. Linsy wants to be cloned so cells from her body are to be removed, placed in culture and deprived of nutrients. For reasons not quite understood, the total genetic code of the cells becomes active. The nucleus of a cell is then removed. Barbara provides an egg whose nucleus has also been removed. The nucleus from Linsy's cell is then inserted into the egg cell. An electric shock provides stimulus for the egg to start dividing. Mary, the "surrogate," then carries the developing embryo. Once born the baby would be an exact genetic duplicate of Linsy.

Now I will explain some of the cloning terms so when I talk about the ways they cloned the bull and tried to clone a human you will better understand. First of all, What is a clone? Well a clone is a group of genetically identical individuals descended from the same parent by asexual reproduction. And it is also a group of identical cells produced by mitotic division from an original cell. Last of all it could also be a group of DNA molecules produced from an original length of DNA sequence produced by a bacterium or virus using molecular biology techniques. And this leads to the question what is gene targeting? Well it is a very precise change to the genetic information in a target cell also known as a knockout. The next term you should know is nuclear transfer. This is when DNA is removed from an unfertilized egg and the nucleus of a specially prepared body cell is introduced and the combination or "couplet" is triggered either by an electrical pulse or the introduction of a chemical T, fuse them together then begin the process of development. Most attempts however fail. The next term is Quiescence and this is when all functions in the cell have stopped, cell becomes dormant until surroundings are favorable. And last but not least Xenotransplantation, and this is when the transfer of organs or tissues from a donor of one species to a recipient of another for his to succeed however the donor has to be immune to the recipients organs. Another term is Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer: This technique commonly designated "Human Therapuetic Cloning" a patients body cell is combined with an egg cell that the DNA has been removed from. As a result the body cell's DNA is reprogrammed back to an embryonic state, and tatipotent stem cells are produced identical to the patient. Another term is Parthenogenesis: In this technique a woman's oocyte is directly activated without removal of its DNA to begin development on it's own, forming preimplantation embryo from which totipotent stem cells are isolated. The last term is Oosplasmic Transfer: In the reverse of nuclear transfer the removal of the cytoplasm of an oocyte and transferring it into the body cell of a patient thereby transforming the patients cell into a primitive stem cell.

In 1975 a man named Gurdon developed a method of nuclear transfer. This is a two step process. First he used delicate needles and a good microscope to suck the nucleus from a frog oocyte, producing a "enucleated oocyte". Which is an oocyte without a nucleus. With this genetic material removed the enucleated oocyte would not divide or differentiate even when fertilized. That was what he figured since a cell is nothing without a nucleus. But the results of his second step is what shocked a lot of people including himself since he figured that it was probably going to fail. In the second step he used the same equipment and skill to transfer the nucleus from the frog's gut cell into a enuccleated oocyte. That's nuclear transfer, the transfer of a nucleus from one cell to another creating a new cell with a different nucleus. Many of the new cells that Gurdon created acted like zygotes. They divided just like a normal developing embryo producing one big ball of cells. And that big ball of cells differentiated. Nerve cells, skin cells, blood cells appeared just as they would in a normal embryo. After the normal time of developing Gurdon had a bunch of tiny tadpoles. Because the tadpoles had all come from the gut cell of the same adult they all had the same genetic make-up. So they were all clones, in other word identical twins of each other. But unlike normal identical twins they were made from a differentiated cell. Gurdon proved what most scientists had argued about, that differentiation was reversible. Gurdon had made clones from adult cells.

The consequences outweigh the profits to cloning. Animal cloning yields high failure rates, therefore human attempts would end in miscarriages and deformed babies. And many critics say that it's wrong to produce a person that is not genetically unique. But the people who agree with cloning argue that it would be alright because the "twin" would grow up in a different time period than his or her genetic twin. But patient groups and the biotech industry oppose the ban on human cloning because it would outlaw " therapeutic cloning" in which scientists make embryonic clones to get stem cells for potential disease treatments. The biotech industry say that cloning should be banned for reproductive cloning but allowed for therapeutic reasons.

Mentioned above is a bull that was cloned. That bulls name is Chance, he is a 21 year old bull that was successfully cloned, plus the first bull ever cloned. His offspring was fittingly named Second Chance Researchers in Texas A&M University cloned Chance. Chance is the oldest animal ever cloned. It took the researchers 189 tries to produce Second Chance, and after a year-long research project the clone was born in August. Chance has been on the Late Show with David Letterman and was the recipient of numerous rewards. His testicles had been removed due to a disease and cloning was the last attempt to save his genetic heritage. While Chance died before Second Chance was cloned, scientists ponder the fact that maybe Second Chance would have the same laid back attitude that Chance had. Each chromosome in the animal has a special end called a telemore. The younger the animal , the longer the telemore. As the animal gets older the telemore shortens. Scientist will know in a month or two whether or not Second Chance will have telemores short like the 21 year old father or like a normal young calf.

There was also another bull that was cloned, this bull was six months old and was named "Gene" . This is just the latest news of a fast growing barnyard full of cloned animals. It's creator ABS Global is pursuing in animal cloning which means producing a higher superior set of livestock. In addition to that cloned animals carrying specific genes may bring to ever most popular idea of "pharming", which is using domesticated animals to produce drugs and other medically important substances Genetically. Modified sheep, goats, and cattle are already being used experimentally as "bioreactors" to produce human proteins in their milk, but cloning should however simplify the process of introducing foreign genes into large numbers of animals.

Also there was a cat called "copy cat" cloned recently. It however doesn't have the same color of her genetic mother.

Many people have a lot of questions about cloning. One of those questions are if cloning is unnatural? In some people's opinions not at all, because In nature some organism in nature only reproduce using clones, some organisms that do that are bacteria yeast, snails and shrimp. Because in nature sexual reproduction is the only way to improve stock of a species, most asexual species tend to die off, but at least one, a shrimp called the Artemia perthenogenetica, has survived at least 30 million years. Many other species, including the aphid, reproduce by cloning most of the time and only reproduce sexually once every few generations. Maybe one day humans will be the same.

Another question is could people be cloned without a conscious brain so there body parts can be harvested with fewer moral problems? And the answer to that is no, consciousness doesn't reside in any one brain structure or set of genes that could be easily removed from the clone before or during it's development. To remove someone's conscious would be morally dubious. It would be almost impossible to know that the technique worked. A person can look and behave like a mindless vegetable but have a very active mind.

Another question that people have pondered is could vital organs be cloned without the rest of the human body? The answer to that is possibly, nobody is close to knowing because of the ban on cloning. Dolly shows that it is possible to reprogram the cell of an adult, this newly formed possibility shows that maybe they can reprogram red blood vessels or even skins cells. The technical obstacles would be huge though.

There are many more questions like could cloning be used to create super warriors or super intelligent people? (Possibly) And if cloning could be used to save an endangered species? ( maybe) Or even if cloning could help gay couples conceive and make men unnecessary for procreation. (Yes)

The economics of cloning; free market forces create an incentive for cloning for cloning human beings. The market for cloning arises if a large enough fraction of the clones income can be appropriated by it's model. Only people with the highest ability are cloned, while people at the bottom of the distribution of income specialize in surrogacy. Cloning however then reduces inequality. It could possibly create a perfectly egalitarian society where all workers have a top ability if fertility is uncorrelated with ability and if the distribution of ability is the same among the parents of the offspring then the distribution will be the same among sexually reproduced children as cloned reproduced children. If the distribution of genes, other than the abilities is preserved by sexual reproduction than cloning does not eliminates inequality and it also does not disappear. Also if fertility is negatively correlated with ability in the long run a reproductive caste of bottom ability people co-exist with a cloned and worker caste of top ability agents wile intermediate ability types have disappeared.

Cloning Ethics are a very touchy subject. Different people have different views on the cloning situation, some want to save endangered species but not to clone humans, others want the gay community to be able to have children and have a "normal" family. While others just want to grow vital body parts for people who need them. But then there are the abnormal people who want to have eternal life, human cloning and super hero type people. Some people say that these things are great, but if you look from a religious point of view you are playing god, but if you look from a scientists point of view you are helping millions of people. But no matter what view you look at there are major consequences and things that could have an unexpected turnout.

Homework Help: Social Studies: World Issues

For Further Reading