Cloning by Kelly Nguyen
THE GREAT DEBATE
What is it?
Cloning is taking an organism and making a replica of it with the exact DNA. There are many variations of cloning such as humans and molecular. The cloning of humans are usually referred to as artificial human cloning. However humans born as identical twins are clones but are produced naturally. As for molecular cloning, it is referring to the process of making multiple copies of a DNA sequence. The process of cloning is taking DNA from one cell and placing into another and fusing it together to develop into an embryo, called nuclear transfer.
What is the purpose?
Other than the purpose of creating another human with the same genes is to produce new medicines and have a better understanding on development and genetics. Animal cloning can be used to produce elite herds with the best animals. These transgenic farm animals will be useful producing and providing a sufficient amount of produce. For example cows, cloning only the cows that make the most milk will give an abundant amount of milk for the farmers for themselves and to sell.
What has been done?
Before Dolly the sheep came into the media, the first animal to be cloned by scientists is a tadpole. Dolly the sheep became the most famous clone in the world. Dolly is the first animal to be cloned from an adult cell instead of an embryo. Scientists from Roslin Institute in Scotland produced Dolly after approximately 277 attempts. The production of Dolly used the nucleus of an under cell of a six year old white sheep. Scientists found a way to make the udder cell to prevent from growing but alive by fixing the growth medium. The scientists injected the udder cell into an unfertilized Scottish Blackface ewe egg cell. They used electrical pulses to fuse together the white sheep with the black sheep. Only 27 embryos were formed after 277 cell fusions but only one was successful which is Dolly.
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PROS VS. CONS
Pros
Cloning will help increase new discoveries that will help the study of humans. Women who cannot a bear a child, cloning will help them bear child. For women who want identical twins, cloning will assure the women to have twins. Also parents who risk passing a defect/illness to a child could have a fertilized ovum be cloned and free the clone from any defects which will be later implanted into the womb. Another advantage to cloning is unlimited organs. Those in need of any organ transplant will not have to worry about getting a donor because there are plenty organs ready to be used.
Cons
Cloning is not in favor of a diverse society. It will reduce genetic diversity, which takes the risk of creating a population of the same people. If a disease happens to come upon the community, it will wipe out the whole population like a chain reaction. In a farming community, the cloned animals will reduce the diversity and there will not be any improvement within them. Another reason cloning is not good is, it costs a lot of money for its process. Looking at how many tries it took to produce Dolly, it probably required an abundant amount of money to obtain all the machinery, programs, and cell used.
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RELATION TO LITERATURE
House of the Scorpion
El Patron is dependent on his clone’s organs. Matt, who is a clone, looks exactly like El Patron when he was younger. Matt eats and sleep like any normal human being however the people around him fail to consider him as a human. To El Patron’s advantage, whenever he is ill and in need for an organ transplant, he takes an organ from one of his clones.
Jekyll and Hyde
Dr. Jekyll wants to explore the good and evil side of the human mind. Jekyll creates an evil side of himself named Mr. Hyde. Jekyll composes a potion where when he drinks it, he will turn into Mr. Hyde temporarily. Eventually, the potion runs out and his ability to switch from Mr. Hyde to Jekyll and Jekyll to Hyde is unavailable. In the end, he becomes Mr. Hyde permanently.
What is it?
Cloning is taking an organism and making a replica of it with the exact DNA. There are many variations of cloning such as humans and molecular. The cloning of humans are usually referred to as artificial human cloning. However humans born as identical twins are clones but are produced naturally. As for molecular cloning, it is referring to the process of making multiple copies of a DNA sequence. The process of cloning is taking DNA from one cell and placing into another and fusing it together to develop into an embryo, called nuclear transfer.
What is the purpose?
Other than the purpose of creating another human with the same genes is to produce new medicines and have a better understanding on development and genetics. Animal cloning can be used to produce elite herds with the best animals. These transgenic farm animals will be useful producing and providing a sufficient amount of produce. For example cows, cloning only the cows that make the most milk will give an abundant amount of milk for the farmers for themselves and to sell.
What has been done?
Before Dolly the sheep came into the media, the first animal to be cloned by scientists is a tadpole. Dolly the sheep became the most famous clone in the world. Dolly is the first animal to be cloned from an adult cell instead of an embryo. Scientists from Roslin Institute in Scotland produced Dolly after approximately 277 attempts. The production of Dolly used the nucleus of an under cell of a six year old white sheep. Scientists found a way to make the udder cell to prevent from growing but alive by fixing the growth medium. The scientists injected the udder cell into an unfertilized Scottish Blackface ewe egg cell. They used electrical pulses to fuse together the white sheep with the black sheep. Only 27 embryos were formed after 277 cell fusions but only one was successful which is Dolly.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
PROS VS. CONS
Pros
Cloning will help increase new discoveries that will help the study of humans. Women who cannot a bear a child, cloning will help them bear child. For women who want identical twins, cloning will assure the women to have twins. Also parents who risk passing a defect/illness to a child could have a fertilized ovum be cloned and free the clone from any defects which will be later implanted into the womb. Another advantage to cloning is unlimited organs. Those in need of any organ transplant will not have to worry about getting a donor because there are plenty organs ready to be used.
Cons
Cloning is not in favor of a diverse society. It will reduce genetic diversity, which takes the risk of creating a population of the same people. If a disease happens to come upon the community, it will wipe out the whole population like a chain reaction. In a farming community, the cloned animals will reduce the diversity and there will not be any improvement within them. Another reason cloning is not good is, it costs a lot of money for its process. Looking at how many tries it took to produce Dolly, it probably required an abundant amount of money to obtain all the machinery, programs, and cell used.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
RELATION TO LITERATURE
House of the Scorpion
El Patron is dependent on his clone’s organs. Matt, who is a clone, looks exactly like El Patron when he was younger. Matt eats and sleep like any normal human being however the people around him fail to consider him as a human. To El Patron’s advantage, whenever he is ill and in need for an organ transplant, he takes an organ from one of his clones.
Jekyll and Hyde
Dr. Jekyll wants to explore the good and evil side of the human mind. Jekyll creates an evil side of himself named Mr. Hyde. Jekyll composes a potion where when he drinks it, he will turn into Mr. Hyde temporarily. Eventually, the potion runs out and his ability to switch from Mr. Hyde to Jekyll and Jekyll to Hyde is unavailable. In the end, he becomes Mr. Hyde permanently.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- "BBC News | SCI/TECH | Q&A: What Is Cloning?" BBC NEWS | News Front Page. 24 June 1999. Web. 30 May 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/377180.stm>.
- "Cloning Dolly the Sheep - AnimalResearch.info." Home - AnimalResearch.info. 1996. Web. 30 May 2010. <http://www.animalresearch.info/en/medical/timeline/Dolly>.
- "Cloning Fact Sheet." Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 11 May 2009. Web. 30 May 2010. <http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml#animals>.
- Genetic Science Learning Center. "What is Cloning?." Learn.Genetics 30 May 2010 <http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/tech/cloning/whatiscloning/>
- "Reactions: The Cloning Debate." Oracle ThinkQuest Library. 1998. Web. 30 May 2010. <http://library.thinkquest.org/24355/data/reactions/proconmain.html>.
- Twyman, Richard. "Animal Cloning | The Human Genome." Genome | The HumanGenome. 1 Aug. 2003. Web. 30 May 2010. <http://genome.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTD021034.html>.