What is cloning
Our subject for this presentation is cloning. This should not be confused with genetic modification. When an organism is genetically engineered, new genes are added to create a new, better race with different characteristics. Cloning doesn’t change anything about the genes and doesn’t attempt to create or improve organisms. The word cloning describes the processes used to create an exact genetic copy of another cell, tissue or organism. The copied material is referred to as a clone. Clones are only identical to their donor by their DNA, so appearance, behaviour and personality can be different. Just look at identical twins, they are natural clones. The type of cloning that we hear about most in the media is reproductive cloning, which involves the cloning of animals and humans. Two other important types of cloning that we will talk about are therapeutic cloning and DNA cloning.
DNA cloning
The term recombinant DNA technology is the same as DNA cloning. DNA consists of genes, which is why DNA cloning is also referred to as gene cloning. It means cloning a gene and not a whole organism. With cloning a gene you take a gene from one organism and put it into a second organism. By copying such a gene they are able to examine it and they can test medication on it. Cloning a gene can only be done if the location of a disease on the DNA is known. This technology isn’t new, it has been around since the 1970s, and it is used in almost every biology lab. It is often used to make better crop, but it is also used a lot in health science to study how diseases develop or can be treated.
Reproductive cloning
Reproductive cloning refers to the cloning of animals and humans. It is done in 2 ways. The first process is rather simple. When a fertilized egg tries to divide into a two-celled embryo, the two cells separate. Each cell continues dividing on its own and becomes an embryo. This is how you get identical twins. When you separate the fertilised egg or an embryonic cell, they both have the required DNA, by hand in a Petra dish it’s called artificial embryo twinning.
The second process is called "somatic cell nuclear transfer" (SCNT).
Animal cloning has been done since 1885. The very first time they cloned a sea urchin by artificial embryo splitting. Because of the lack of good instruments, they used a baby hair. After that people started cloning larger animals every time; fish, mouse, rabbits, horses etc. It was done by artificial embryo twinning or by nuclear transfer. Nuclear transfer is the same as SCNT only now the nucleus is transferred only into egg cells. Up to now a total of 21 species of animals have been cloned. Still everyone calls Dolly the first clone. The reason for Dolly’s fame is that she was cloned from a specialised, adult cell instead of an egg cell, using a new technology, namely SCNT. This had never been done before and scientists had never thought it would be possible to transform a specialised cell into a cell that would develop into a baby. Scientists are trying hard to find a way to bring back extinct species by means of cloning. So far they haven’t found a way yet and it is highly unlikely that extinct species that are already extinct for a very long time, such as the dinosaurs, can be brought back by cloning.
Reproductive cloning can also be used to clone humans. In 2001 ACT was the first company to successfully clone early human embryos using SCNT, but they stopped growing at the six cell stage. Many other company’s and scientists claimed to have cloned humans but they were never able to prove anything. In most countries new laws have been made to prohibit reproductive cloning of humans. Therapeutic cloning is usually allowed. But there is a lot of discussion still going on about the subject. People have similar problems with cloning as with abortion and in vitro fertilisation, IVF. Are we able to and allowed to decide on who lives or dies? Can we kill foetuses because they are not full-grown humans yet? Now we are still trying to successfully create a human clone. Once we succeeded in figuring out how to do that, even bigger issues will have to be solved. Is it necessary to clone entire humans or will organs and tissues be enough? Will we allow humans to be cloned because they have extremely desirable characteristics, such as a very high IQ or the perfect body?
Therapeutic cloning
Therapeutic cloning is the production of human embryos for use in research. Therapeutic cloning uses similar techniques as reproductive cloning, but its goal is not to create a entire new organism but to make specialized cells that can repair diseased tissue and thereby treat a disease. Stem cells are important because they can be used to replace any type of specialized cell in your body when your own cells are not working properly any more. Stem cells are taken from the egg after it has divided for 5 days. The extraction process destroys the embryo, and this is the cause of an ethical discussion.
Many researchers hope that one day stem cells can be used to serve as replacement cells to treat heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancer, and other diseases. Using this technology it should be possible to make organs that will not be rejected by the body of a patient. This would be an enormous medical development, because the need for organ donation would be significantly reduced.
Why we should clone animals:
Ø 21 species have already successfully been cloned, see list; Carp, cat, cattle, deer, dog, ferret, fruit flies, goat, gaur, horse, mice, mouflon, mule, pig, rabbit, rat, rhesus monkey, sheep, tadpole, water buffalo, wolf.
Ø For medical research, genetically engineered animals are needed, for example to examine diseases or to make certain proteins for medicines. To create a suitable animal takes up loads of time. Cloning the successfully engineered animal would save that time.
Ø Cloning can be used to fight diseases in cattle. If healthy or even disease-resistant animals are cloned, you can create a disease-resistant herd.
Ø If we keep cloning and investigating, bringing back extinct species may become possible in the future.
Ø We can bring back our so much loved but unfortunately dead pets. However, what you should keep in mind is that the characteristics of an animal do not only depend on its DNA. Experiences in its life and its upbringing play a great part in how your pet behaves. So if the clone has other life experiences it will become a totally different animal than your last pet. The first economical animal cloning happened three years ago in Texas when a woman called Julie paid $50,000 to get a clone from her 17-year-old cat, Nicky, who had died. The cloning was successful and the cat seemed to be very similar to the old cat, but lots of people found it all a waste of money that should have been used better.
Ø Endangered species can be cloned so many times that they won’t be endangered anymore. It has already been done with 2 species of cattle, the gaur and banteng.
Why we shouldn’t clone animals:
Ø Today the success rate of creating a healthy clone still ranges from 0.1 percent to 3 %.
Ø Every cell has telomeres. A telomere can be compared with a clock that tells the cell how long it has to live. There have been several clones that died early because their clocks had already lived 6 years and they only had the remaining time left to live. It happened with Dolly, but it didn’t happen with all the clones, some even lived extra long.
Ø LOS stands for Large Offspring Syndrome and it refers to cloned foetuses that grew too large during pregnancy, and had serious birth defects. This syndrome used to occur quite often with cloning. However when people began to understand more about the cloning process, the syndrome didn’t occur so much anymore. Also, some clones without LOS have developed kidney or brain malformations and impaired immune systems that can cause problems later in life. Almost 30 % of clones born alive have one of the diseases I just named.
Why we should clone humans:
Ø Once we succeed in making stem cells, they can be used as a replacement for ill cells. This might lead to the healing of diseases such as Alzheimer and cancer.
Ø Human reproductive cloning allows parents who are both infertile to have children with at least some of their DNA in their offspring. An argument against this is that there are already so many available adoption children in countries like China.
Ø In vitro fertilisation and abortion also involves the killing of foetuses and those two techniques are already legal in most countries. Besides, the superfluous foetuses that IVF produces are now destroyed, while they could be used better for research into stem cells.
Why we shouldn’t clone humans:
Ø There is still too much unknown about human clones. For example, it is still unknown what cloning would do to psychological development and it is very important that the clone has no damage to its brains.
Ø There are still too many risks involved for the developed clone. Just look at the rate of success with animal cloning.
Ø If we would be able to succesfully clone humans people will want to clone humans for the wrong reasons, such as creating a super army.
Ø Just because we can´t produce many scientific reasons against the technology, does not mean we should deny our strong and instinctive reactions to it.
Conclusion
We agree that animal cloning for medical purposes and for saving endangered species is useful. We find it unnecessary to bring back dead pets.
We don´t think that it is nessecary to clone entire humans, because we only need parts of the human such as genes, tissues and organs to cure people. No company should be allowed to simply start cloning humans. A future with factories that produce human clones, which are used as body bags for new spare organs doesn’t sound very attractive.
Our subject for this presentation is cloning. This should not be confused with genetic modification. When an organism is genetically engineered, new genes are added to create a new, better race with different characteristics. Cloning doesn’t change anything about the genes and doesn’t attempt to create or improve organisms. The word cloning describes the processes used to create an exact genetic copy of another cell, tissue or organism. The copied material is referred to as a clone. Clones are only identical to their donor by their DNA, so appearance, behaviour and personality can be different. Just look at identical twins, they are natural clones. The type of cloning that we hear about most in the media is reproductive cloning, which involves the cloning of animals and humans. Two other important types of cloning that we will talk about are therapeutic cloning and DNA cloning.
DNA cloning
The term recombinant DNA technology is the same as DNA cloning. DNA consists of genes, which is why DNA cloning is also referred to as gene cloning. It means cloning a gene and not a whole organism. With cloning a gene you take a gene from one organism and put it into a second organism. By copying such a gene they are able to examine it and they can test medication on it. Cloning a gene can only be done if the location of a disease on the DNA is known. This technology isn’t new, it has been around since the 1970s, and it is used in almost every biology lab. It is often used to make better crop, but it is also used a lot in health science to study how diseases develop or can be treated.
Reproductive cloning refers to the cloning of animals and humans. It is done in 2 ways. The first process is rather simple. When a fertilized egg tries to divide into a two-celled embryo, the two cells separate. Each cell continues dividing on its own and becomes an embryo. This is how you get identical twins. When you separate the fertilised egg or an embryonic cell, they both have the required DNA, by hand in a Petra dish it’s called artificial embryo twinning.
The second process is called "somatic cell nuclear transfer" (SCNT).
Animal cloning has been done since 1885. The very first time they cloned a sea urchin by artificial embryo splitting. Because of the lack of good instruments, they used a baby hair. After that people started cloning larger animals every time; fish, mouse, rabbits, horses etc. It was done by artificial embryo twinning or by nuclear transfer. Nuclear transfer is the same as SCNT only now the nucleus is transferred only into egg cells. Up to now a total of 21 species of animals have been cloned. Still everyone calls Dolly the first clone. The reason for Dolly’s fame is that she was cloned from a specialised, adult cell instead of an egg cell, using a new technology, namely SCNT. This had never been done before and scientists had never thought it would be possible to transform a specialised cell into a cell that would develop into a baby. Scientists are trying hard to find a way to bring back extinct species by means of cloning. So far they haven’t found a way yet and it is highly unlikely that extinct species that are already extinct for a very long time, such as the dinosaurs, can be brought back by cloning.
Reproductive cloning can also be used to clone humans. In 2001 ACT was the first company to successfully clone early human embryos using SCNT, but they stopped growing at the six cell stage. Many other company’s and scientists claimed to have cloned humans but they were never able to prove anything. In most countries new laws have been made to prohibit reproductive cloning of humans. Therapeutic cloning is usually allowed. But there is a lot of discussion still going on about the subject. People have similar problems with cloning as with abortion and in vitro fertilisation, IVF. Are we able to and allowed to decide on who lives or dies? Can we kill foetuses because they are not full-grown humans yet? Now we are still trying to successfully create a human clone. Once we succeeded in figuring out how to do that, even bigger issues will have to be solved. Is it necessary to clone entire humans or will organs and tissues be enough? Will we allow humans to be cloned because they have extremely desirable characteristics, such as a very high IQ or the perfect body?
Therapeutic cloning
Therapeutic cloning is the production of human embryos for use in research. Therapeutic cloning uses similar techniques as reproductive cloning, but its goal is not to create a entire new organism but to make specialized cells that can repair diseased tissue and thereby treat a disease. Stem cells are important because they can be used to replace any type of specialized cell in your body when your own cells are not working properly any more. Stem cells are taken from the egg after it has divided for 5 days. The extraction process destroys the embryo, and this is the cause of an ethical discussion.
Many researchers hope that one day stem cells can be used to serve as replacement cells to treat heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancer, and other diseases. Using this technology it should be possible to make organs that will not be rejected by the body of a patient. This would be an enormous medical development, because the need for organ donation would be significantly reduced.
Why we should clone animals:
Ø 21 species have already successfully been cloned, see list; Carp, cat, cattle, deer, dog, ferret, fruit flies, goat, gaur, horse, mice, mouflon, mule, pig, rabbit, rat, rhesus monkey, sheep, tadpole, water buffalo, wolf.
Ø Cloning can be used to fight diseases in cattle. If healthy or even disease-resistant animals are cloned, you can create a disease-resistant herd.
Ø If we keep cloning and investigating, bringing back extinct species may become possible in the future.
Ø We can bring back our so much loved but unfortunately dead pets. However, what you should keep in mind is that the characteristics of an animal do not only depend on its DNA. Experiences in its life and its upbringing play a great part in how your pet behaves. So if the clone has other life experiences it will become a totally different animal than your last pet. The first economical animal cloning happened three years ago in Texas when a woman called Julie paid $50,000 to get a clone from her 17-year-old cat, Nicky, who had died. The cloning was successful and the cat seemed to be very similar to the old cat, but lots of people found it all a waste of money that should have been used better.
Ø Endangered species can be cloned so many times that they won’t be endangered anymore. It has already been done with 2 species of cattle, the gaur and banteng.
Why we shouldn’t clone animals:
Ø Today the success rate of creating a healthy clone still ranges from 0.1 percent to 3 %.
Ø Every cell has telomeres. A telomere can be compared with a clock that tells the cell how long it has to live. There have been several clones that died early because their clocks had already lived 6 years and they only had the remaining time left to live. It happened with Dolly, but it didn’t happen with all the clones, some even lived extra long.
Ø LOS stands for Large Offspring Syndrome and it refers to cloned foetuses that grew too large during pregnancy, and had serious birth defects. This syndrome used to occur quite often with cloning. However when people began to understand more about the cloning process, the syndrome didn’t occur so much anymore. Also, some clones without LOS have developed kidney or brain malformations and impaired immune systems that can cause problems later in life. Almost 30 % of clones born alive have one of the diseases I just named.
Why we should clone humans:
Ø Once we succeed in making stem cells, they can be used as a replacement for ill cells. This might lead to the healing of diseases such as Alzheimer and cancer.
Ø In vitro fertilisation and abortion also involves the killing of foetuses and those two techniques are already legal in most countries. Besides, the superfluous foetuses that IVF produces are now destroyed, while they could be used better for research into stem cells.
Why we shouldn’t clone humans:
Ø There is still too much unknown about human clones. For example, it is still unknown what cloning would do to psychological development and it is very important that the clone has no damage to its brains.
Ø There are still too many risks involved for the developed clone. Just look at the rate of success with animal cloning.
Ø If we would be able to succesfully clone humans people will want to clone humans for the wrong reasons, such as creating a super army.
Ø Just because we can´t produce many scientific reasons against the technology, does not mean we should deny our strong and instinctive reactions to it.
Conclusion
We agree that animal cloning for medical purposes and for saving endangered species is useful. We find it unnecessary to bring back dead pets.
We don´t think that it is nessecary to clone entire humans, because we only need parts of the human such as genes, tissues and organs to cure people. No company should be allowed to simply start cloning humans. A future with factories that produce human clones, which are used as body bags for new spare organs doesn’t sound very attractive.
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