First Cloned Sheep From Embryo Cells example essay topic

The biological definition of a clone is an organism that has the same genetic information as another organism or organisms, where else cloning is any process in which production of a clone is successful. These are facts that many people don't want them to become a reality within our humanity. On the other hand, other people support and want produce human clones. Who's right? Should we not let science advance freely? Should we take the power of God and mess around with it?

Cloning is a big issue these days; the opinion of our community comes into conflict when debating this serious issue. 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 (McKinnel, 1979). The egg cells did not develop. Successful cloning of embryo cells was accomplished later in the 1970's by Dr. John Gurdon. 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. Steen e Willadsen announced that he had successfully transferred nuclei from embryos of sheep to produce clones (Kolata, 1997).

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 embryo.

This would put the cell in the right moment in the cell cycle therefore it will allow the genetic material to integrate more successfully with the egg cell. Dr. Wilmut and Dr. Campbell became world famous after this great achievement. Their fame was not finished yet however. On July 5 at 4: 00 p.m. lamb number 6 LL 3 (Campbell, 1997), or Dolly, was born shed down the road from the Institute. She weighted 14 pounds and was healthy. They accomplish this by using a more sophisticated nuclear transfer method, which is supposed to be more efficient than the prior methods.

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-vito fertilization). Furthermore, the Roslin scientists used three different breeds for each sheep to prove that the experiment was a success.

(Kolata, 3 March 1997) From a Functionalist view, cloning could 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. The goal of nuclear transfer in 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. Scientists also ponder the idea of cloning endangered species to increase their population. The possibilities are endless. Moreover 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 (Kolata, 2 December 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-vito fertilization. Nuclear transfer could also provide children who need organ transplants to have a clone born to donate organs. Cloning could also provide a copy of a child for a couple whose child had died. On the other hand, from the Conflict perspective, cloning does offer some negative affects it could have to life. The biggest problem with asexual reproduction is that genetic diversity becomes limited. If a population of organisms has the same genetic information, then the disease would wipe out the population.

This is because not one organism has an advantage of fighting the disease over the other. The technique of nuclear transfer is also early in its developmental stages. Thus, errors are occurring when scientists carry out the procedure. For instance, it took 277 tries to produce Dolly, and Roslin scientists produced many lambs with abnormalities (Wilmut, 1997).

This is the main reason science is holding out on cloning humans Other conflictive arguments for cloning include if we are taking nature into our own hands by cloning. Religious organizations consider nuclear transfer to cause men to be reproductively obsolete (Post, 1997). Religious groups claim that cloning defies the rule or their belief that humans have souls. They also consider cloning unnatural, and say we are taking the work of God into our own hands. People question when we will draw the line for getting involved in natural events. There is also a debate as to the moral rights of clones.

Some say this will occur because there is no birth of newness (Post, 1997). We would not receive clones with such excitement as a child of a couple who conceived naturally. If natural reproduction were to occur, genetic variation would occur. They say cloning would deprive someone to have any perception of uniqueness. People also wonder what mental and emotional problems would result if a clone were to find out that he or she was cloned.

In addition, mutations can also occur. From an Interaction ist view we can see that 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 fissions, 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. 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. Moreover, cloning is supported by a group called Ra elian. They believe cloning is the main core of their religion, thus it's their freedom of religion that encourages them to fight against anybody that opposes cloning. The Rael ians are in constant battle to encourage the cloning of humans.

They have come across with a corporation of their own, Clonaid. Clonaid is currently trying to clone a boy who died of a genetic heart defect at 10 months. In an everyday basis, cloning has brought new fears, hopes and wishes to many people. We wish cloning could make us immortals. We hope cloning can save the lives of many of our young children.

Nevertheless we also fear for what could happen if this advance science falls in the wrong hands. At this point, I believe we should not use cloning. However, if we are to venture into cloning we must make many precautions. I think the best way to do this is to research the consequences.

Yet, I do not believe cloning of animals is acceptable. Thus, I do not think we should conduct cloning experiment on animals. In summary, cloning is ethical, unless there is lack of respect for the lives of animals and humans, and for the ongoing in habitation of life on earth.

Bibliography

McKinnel, Robert Gilmore. Cloning: A Biologist Reports. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979.
Kolata, Gina. 'With Cloning of a Sheep, Ethical Ground Shifts' The New York Times. 24 February 1997: publication web-site page.
Bruce, Dr. Donald. 'Cloning, A Step too Far?' (1998, January 5) Society, Religion and Technology Project, Church of Scotland, [ Document] URL web Christopher.
A Sheep in Sheep's Clothing? ' Discover. January 1998: 22-23.
Post, Stephen G. 'The Judeo-Christian case against human cloning. ' America. 21 June 1997: 19-22.