Genetic Cloning

Genetic cloning is one of the most controversial topics of all time. People, specifically scientists, are constantly searching for ways to improve the quality of human life. As a result, they began genetically engineering animals and are currently in search of a method to genetically engineer humans as well; which is called human cloning. There are many reasons why people should not go forward with this step since genetic cloning, consequently human cloning, does not respect nature nor does it ensure diversity and survival in natural ecosystems. In addition, genetic cloning is a cruel, harsh, and an unsafe experiment.

The topic of cloning has been a science fiction legend until Dolly, the first cloned mammal, was born in the late 1990s. Dolly’s cloning renewed the interest in the potential of human cloning as seen in science fiction. Cloning has been done since the 1950s, but every cloning experiment included problems. When cloning mice, researches can use thousands of eggs to fix errors, but human cloning cannot use the same knowledge learned from cloning cows. With human cloning there is an “…extremely high rate of death…” and chance of abnormalities that cause the ethical concern for cloning humans (Rettner).

The first being a female gamete, known as the ovum (egg/oocyte) and the second being a somatic cell, referring to the cells of the human body. Skin cells, fat cells, and liver cells are a few examples of somatic cells. The nucleus of the donor egg cell is sucked out through a micropipette and discarded, leaving a recipient egg with no nucleus, but an intact cytoplasm and the cellular machinery for producing an embryo. Next a donor somatic cell containing the genetically manipulated DNA, is taken from the cow with lack of BLG protein in its milk, and is cultured in a low nutrient medium which deprives the cell from nutrients so it becomes dormant. The cell stops dividing and switches off its active genes. The two cells are placed next to each other and an electrical pulse causes them to fuse together, the somatic cell nucleus is reprogrammed by its host egg cell. A time delay improves this process by allowing unknown factors in the cytoplasm to activate the chromatin. Cell division is then triggered by a second electric pulse engaging cellular activity and effectively jump starting the cell into the production of an embryo. After almost a week, the egg is implanted into the uterus of a surrogate mother. The egg is now viable and capable of producing an adult organism containing all the necessary genetic information from just one parent. This results in the original genetically engineered cow successfully producing Daisy, the cloned cow with genetically modified DNA leading to the production of milk lacking in the BLG

As mentioned earlier, cloning is the copying of an organism that results in identical offspring (“Cloning”). Scientists have tried cloning many times on frogs and other organisms (“Cloning”), but when the first mammal to be cloned was successful in 1997, scientists jumped into pools of thoughts to clone humans. The first mammal to be cloned was a sheep named Dolly. The process of cloning Dolly was called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. The nucleus of a somatic stem cell is taken out of the eggs of the

hen people think of the word “cloning” they often have in mind frightening images of duplicates of humans in a kind of mad scientist experiment. In fact, many people were outraged when Dolly came as a result of a cloning experiment in Scotland (Brown, 2009). Therapeutic cloning, however, is completely different and does not involve the creation of a perfect copy from another human being. In therapeutic cloning, fertilization of sperm or eggs is not implanted into the uterus to create a child. Therapeutic cloning is a phase of a procedure known as somatic cell transfer (SCNT) In this procedure; scientists take a somatic cell from the nucleus of an egg (the nucleus contains genetic material) and then it is transplanted. In practical applications

The concept of human cloning has constantly blended a debate, raising moral and ethical issues. There are many aspects involving human cloning that would be brought upon us which would affect us negatively, and would be considered morally wrong. Religious Standpoints, the development of the populace, and every human's distinction are a couple of the supporting reasons that remain against cloning and bolster why it ought not be legalized. The revelation of cloning has turned into and issue of science progression as well as an issue of whether people are doing the right thing by continuing the examination on human cloning.

Cloning and genetically modifying humans is now more attainable than ever due to strides made by science. With a relatively short history, cloning and genetic engineering have been a new concept for many people in society with the first proof of cloning being dolly the sheep, the first successful clone born by the somatic cell nuclear-transfer procedure [1]. Cloning over the years has evolved and now could be used to someday help people requiring organ transplants, recover from traumatic injuries and aid infertile couples with its reproductive possibilities [4].

Then they could follow the approach pioneered in creating Dolly, the sheep cloned in 1996 by scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland: Remove the nucleus of an elephant’s egg and replace it with the rebuilt mammoth nucleus, electrically stimulate the egg to trigger initial cell division into an embryo, and eventually transfer the embryo into an elephant’s womb for gestation

On February 24, 1997 history was made. The first cloned adult mammal was born through somatic cell nuclear transfer (McCuen, 11). Somatic cell nuclear transfer is when a nucleus of a mammary gland is removed and fused with an egg by using electrical pulses. The pulses prompt the egg to divide to form an embryo. The embryo is then transferred to a uterus where it is implanted to grow (McCuen, 10). Before the creation of Dolly, many scientists were unsuccessful in their attempts to produce a genetically identical copy of a cell. In the rare occasion that they were successful in their attempts, they would soon be discouraged due to the inability of the clone to sustain life. It took hundreds of attempts before Dolly’s team of scientist could obtain a successfully cloned sheep. Of the 277 successful transfers, only 29 became embryos. And of these 29 embryos, Dolly was the sole survivor (Sweat, 1). What sets Dolly apart from previous clones is the fact that she was cloned differently. Dolly was cloned not from sex cells but from mature mammal cells with no reproductive function (Sweat, 1). Even though Dolly was a

But even with vast technology, high risks are involved and the process is not guaranteed. For example, in order to procced with such a process, therapeutic cloning requires eggs in order to acquire stem cells. If scientist were performing this process for a particular disease, they would have to use a lot of eggs which is to this day causing an ongoing moral debate; and if a woman was to agree to donate an egg, she will have to pass through many painful processes and the procedure will be very costly.

Cloning is a process that involves removing the chromosomes from an animal’s egg cell and replacing them with chromosomes taken from a cell belonging to a different adult animal. The copied material, which has the same genetic makeup as the original, is referred to as a clone. There are three different types of artificial cloning: gene cloning, reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning. Cloning is a very delicate process because many cloned animals resemble animals that are born prematurely. The problem seems to found in the genes because certain genes get turned on or off when a cell becomes specialized during development.

An example of reproductive cloning is Dolly the sheep. She was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, which is much more difficult to clone from. She lived to be only 6 years old due to arthritis. They took an udder cell from a six year old Finn Dorset white sheep. They changed the growth medium to keep the udder cell alive but it stopped them from expanding. According to the article “Cloning Dolly The Sheep”,they injected the cell into an unfertilised egg cell and made the cells fuse by using electrical pulses. Therefore, they moved the DNA of the donor animal's

Cloning is an extremely debated topic in the scientific community. Cloning occurs naturally in plants and in bacteria, but scientists have developed an artificial kind of cloning (1). Reproductive cloning is the process of cloning an animal. This process includes removing the nucleus from a donor animal and removing a somatic cell from an adult female animal. Then, the nucleus and the egg cell are fused, using

The process of cloning a cow using the SCNT technique involves two different cells. The first is the female gamete (ovum). The second is a somatic cell, this will contain the already modified genes and the ability to produce RNAi molecules. The nucleus of the donor cows egg cell is removed and discarded, which will leave it ‘deprogrammed’. The nucleus of the somatic cell is also removed but kept, while the enucleated somatic cell is discarded. The nucleus containing the modified gene is then transferred into the de-nucleated egg cell. The somatic cell nucleus will then be reprogrammed by its host egg cell. The cell is ‘zapped’ with electrical current to fuse and produce the zygote. The ovum, which now contains the somatic cell’s nucleus, is ‘zapped’ a second time and so starts cell division and forms an embryo. The egg now becomes viable and capable of producing an adult organism containing all the necessary genetic information from just one parent. This single cell forms an early stage embryo with about 100 cells (blastocyst), which will have an identical genome to the original organism. Stem cells can be obtained by the destruction of this clone embryo for use in therapeutic cloning or in the case of reproductive cloning, the clone embryo is implanted into a surrogate mother for further development which in this case will be a surrogate mother cow who will give birth to the

The first successful mammal was cloned in the form of Dolly the sheep in 1996. She was cloned at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, Scotland, and lived there until her death when she was six years old. Animal cloning refers to the production of genetically identical whole organisms, or ‘clones’. This is carried out with the use of somatic cell nuclear transfer. Cloning is designed to quickly and efficiently to produce many identical copies of an organism (generally with desired traits). Somatic cell nuclear transfer is the process of transferring a nucleus from a donor cell to an enucleated egg (an egg that has had the nucleus removed). An pulse of electricity fuses the nucleus and enucleated egg together and the resultant egg is then left to divide artificially for about 5 days (known as a blastocyst). The blastocyst will then be transferred into a surrogate mother that will give birth to the offspring. This offspring will have the identical DNA to the organism the somatic cell (nucleus) came from unless a mutation occurs, which will cause a slight change in the DNA coding sequence. However, the offspring will carry the mitochondria from the donor egg cell rather than the somatic cell which can unfortunately lead to nuclear-mitochondrial incompatibilities that can lead to death. Dolly the sheep was the first mammal to be successfully cloned from a somatic cell. Following Dolly’s death at the