The biological definition of a clone is an organism that has the same genetic information as another organism or organisms (“Cloning”, 1997). From this definition and from information about the science behind cloning, my current view on cloning is that it is ethical. This statement ignores information about how we can misuse cloning and what consequences occur when the procedure is unsuccessful. I currently do not think cloning should be used until it is perfected.
I doubt however that we will allow cloning to be misused, and think most people would probably have this opinion on cloning, but their lack of knowledge on cloning, or their belief that cloning would be misused, is the reason for differences of opinion. Thus, an elaboration on the history, techniques, ethics, and reasons for researching the technology of cloning is necessary. The first thing that must be cleared up is what is cloning, and what is a clone. A clone is an organism derived asexually from a single individual by cuttings, bulbs, tubers, fission, or parthenogenesis reproduction (“Cloning”, 1997).
Parthenogenesis reproduction is the development of an organism from an unfertilized ovum, seed or spore (“Parthenogenesis”, 1997). Hence, cloning, biologically speaking, is any process in which production of a clone is successful. Thus, the biological term cloning is the production of a genetically identical duplicate of an organism. However, people can use the word cloning to intend other meanings. For instance, we generalize many older and new techniques as cloning. This is not a good practice because these techniques are different and impose unique concerns and issues.
In the world of scientific technology, cloning is the artificial production of organisms with the same genetic material. Scientists actually call the transferring of a nucleus from the cell of one organism to an enucleated egg cell nuclear transfer (Wilmut, 1997). This will produce an organism that has the exact genetic material as that of the donor cell. Scientists are using current techniques exceedingly more, and with a variety of species. Astonishingly, more clones are present in the world than one would think. In nature, and even in the lives of humans, clones are present.
As stated earlier, a clone is an organism that has the same genetic information as another organism. From this we can say that cloning occurs with all plants, some insects, algae, unicellular organisms that conduct mitosis or binary fission, and occasionally by all multicellular organisms, including humans. Monozygotic twins, or identical twins, are clones of each other. They have the same exact genetic information due to the division of an embryo early in development, which produces two identical embryos. About eight million identical twins are alive in the world, thus, already eight million human clones inhabit the world.
In unicellular organisms, a cell will produce two daughter cells that have the same genetic material. Today, the only cloning research is occurring in scientific model organisms. These are organisms that research scientists from around the globe have collected copious amounts of data. All this data is necessary so that advancements in research can continue more efficiently. The most common scientific models are E. coli, mice, fruit flies, and frogs. The first organisms that were cloned using nuclear transfer were frogs. This is because they have large egg cells and scientists can obtain up to two thousand of them from one ovulation.
McKinnel, 1979) Successful cloning has occurred with livestock. The drive toward success is not because livestock like cows and sheep are model organisms. Instead, the farming industry has made and continues to make a big effort toward finding a way to implement the technique of nuclear transfer for livestock. Research in cloning is also occurring in primates. The reason for studying primates is the similarities with humans. This leads us to the most talked about aspects of cloning, the use of the techniques with human cells and eggs.
Throughout this century, conversation, novels, magazine articles, newspaper reports, and movies have focused on the implications of cloning humans. Part of this media creates thoughts of a utopian society, while some a horrific world; the majority of them being the latter. For those who have had these frightening thoughts, Dr. Richard Seed states he can accomplish the task of cloning a human using nuclear transfer. Dr. Seed is a physicist who researched fertility sciences in the 1980’s and is now specializing in embryology. He states that he has set up a fertility clinic that can conduct nuclear transfer.
Dr. Richard Seed is creating an uproar regarding the ethics of cloning. This is ironic because cloning has occurred. (Flock, 1998) Cloning of humans in a biological sense already has and is occurring. Scientists are researching by splitting embryos to execute experiments to find data relating to cell differentiation, the use of stem cells, and genetic screening. Amazingly, genetic screening is occurring in Britain quite often. Fertility clinics aim this service toward couples where the mother or father has a genetic disorder. A fertility clinic will clone an embryo, then test it for genetic disorders.
If the embryo is tested negative for genetic disorders, then the fertility clinic implants a clone of that embryo. This should guarantee that the child will not have any genetic disorders. (Benoit, 1996) That is the current work with cloning. It is becoming a part of our society already. Cloning is currently a technology that many people could use. I believe it will become more popular as prices for the technique decreases, and as the use of cloning becomes increasingly acceptable. That is if we humans consider cloning an acceptable technology, and that we would like to use for the twenty-first century.
Cloning has progressed so quickly, few of us know if we should be even fooling with this technology. Some scientists say that we put technologies to use once the pros outweigh the cons. A good place for us to find that information is to look at the past and current research results with cloning and why scientists research it. Amazingly, the first attempts at artificial cloning were as early as the beginning of this century. Adolph Eduard Driesch allowed the eggs of a sea urchin develop into the two-blastomere stage. Then he separated it by shaking it in a flask and allowing them to grow.
The cells developed into dwarf sea urchins. Driesch could not explain his experiments and gave up embryology for philosophy (McKinnel, 1979). The first implantation of a nucleus into an egg cell occurred in 1952 by Robert Briggs and Thomas J. King in Philadelphia. They had transferred the nuclei of Leopard Frogs’ eggs . The egg cells did not develop. Successful cloning of embryo cells was accomplished later in the 1970’s by Dr. John Gurdon. The frogs did not develop beyond tadpoles. In 1981, investigators announced they had transplanted nuclei from mouse embryos into mouse eggs.
However, other scientists tried to duplicate the experiments, but found that they fabricated the cloning results (McKinnel, 1979). During the late seventies and early eighties, there were few scientists still studying cloning. Many had predicted that it was impossible to clone embryonic mammal cells. Few continued with research. Many gave up and went into other fields. However, some persisted and were rewarded for their efforts. In 1984, Dr. Steene Willadsen announced that he had successfully transferred nuclei from embryos of sheep to produce clones. He also was successful with cows and even monkeys.
He advanced his methods, and began cloning embryos that were in the 64-128 cell-stage. This suggested that perhaps nuclear transfer was possible with differentiated cells. More exciting was when Dr. Neal First produced cows by nuclear transfer from more developed embryos in 1994 (Kolata, 3 June 1997). Dr. First produced four calves. Two years later, Dr. Ian Wilmut and Dr. Keith Campbell, of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, produced for the world Megan and Morag, the first cloned sheep from embryo cells. Their new technique involved the starving of the donor mbryo.
This would put the cell in the right moment in the cell cycle, thus allowing the genetic material to integrate more successfully with the egg cell. This was the integral step of nuclear transfer. Dr. First had executed the same step, but a laboratory staff member did it accidentally, and First did not realize the significance of his staff member’s blooper (Cambell, 1997). Dr. Wilmut and Dr. Campbell became world famous. Their fame was not finished yet however. On July 5 at 4:00 P. M. lamb number 6LL3, or Dolly, was born in a shed down the road from the Institute.
She weighed in at 14 pounds and was healthy. Scientists accomplished this by using frozen mammary cells taken from a six-year-old pregnant ewe and fusing them with an enucleated egg. The trick to fusing the cells is giving a small electric current to the petri dish on which the egg cell is. This stimulates the egg much like a sperm would, and usually takes the genetic material from the cell and becomes a zygote. They let this zygote grow into an embryo, and then transplanted the embryo in a recipient ewe, acting as a surrogate mother. This procedure occurred late in January of 1996.
This was the day of fusion date for Dolly, which is the natural equivalent to a conception date. An interesting note is that three different sheep were involved in producing Dolly, versus the usual two or one (in-vitro fertilization). Furthermore, the Roslin scientists used three different breeds for each sheep to prove that the experiment was a success (Campbell, 1997). After Dolly came other sheep, cows and even rhesus monkeys cloned using similar techniques but with slight variations. These cloned animals came from Roslin and many universities from across America.
They even produced clones which had genes that would produce certain proteins. For instance, at Roslin, scientists are trying to produce sheep that produce milk with beneficial proteins for Cystic Fibrosis patients. (Wills 1998). The goals and purposes for researching cloning range from making copies of those that have deceased to better engineering the offspring in humans and animals. Cloning could also directly offer a means of curing diseases or a technique that could extend means to acquiring new data for embryology and development of organisms as a whole.
Currently, the agricultural industry demands nuclear transfer to produce better livestock. Cloning could massively improve the agricultural industry as the technique of nuclear transfer improves. Currently, change in the phenotype of livestock is accomplished by bombarding embryos of livestock with genes that produce livestock with preferred traits. However, this technique is not efficient as only 5 percent of the offspring express the traits (Wilmut 1997). Scientists can easily alter adult cells. Thus, cloning from an adult cell would make it easier to alter the genetic material.
A transgenic organism has had its genetic information artificially altered. The goal of transgenic livestock is to produce livestock with ideal characteristics for the agricultural industry and to be able to manufacture biological products such as proteins for humans. Farmers are attempting to produce transgenic livestock already, but not efficiently, due to the minimal ability to alter embryos genetically. Scientists can harvest and grow adult cells in large amounts compared with embryos. Scientists can then genetically alter these cells and find which ones did transform and then clone only those cells.
Scientists also ponder the idea of cloning endangered species to increase their population. The possibilities are endless. However, we are actually doing much of this research for the improvement of life for humans. Embryologist Dr. Steene Willadsen, when talking of past research, stated, “I was checking fences, looking for holes in the scientific fabric, ways to break through what others considered dogma. ” (Cloning 1997). Scientists foresee the cloning of pigs to produce organs that humans will not reject (Wills, 1998).
Also, as mentioned earlier, livestock can produce biological proteins helping people who have diseases including diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Cystic Fibrosis (Wilmut 1997). Cloning also provides better research capabilities for finding cures to many diseases. There are also possibilities that nuclear transfer could provide benefits to those who would like children. For instance, couples who are infertile, or have genetic disorders, could use cloning to produce a child. Equally important, women who are single could have a child using cloning instead of in-vitro fertilization.