Science, in the past few years has made great strides in the field of mammalreproduction. They’ve worked for years to find out exactly what happens duringa pregnancy, and also how it works.
We’ve come so far in these stages as togain the knowledge needed to make oral contraceptives. However, I am not writingthis report to enlighten you on these subjects, or to debate the ethical issuesof them. This report is focusing on the creation of life, not the destruction ofone. Up until a few years ago, we’ve only known one way to reproduce, but now,thanks to the research and endless hours of experiments by those dedicated tofinding out if it really is possible another way, there is a new method ofreproduction called cloning.
I’m not going to debate the moral issues of thissubject, but rather tell you how it’s achieved. How does it work? There aretwo methods of cloning. The first, called embryo cloning, has been achievedyears before in frogs, other amphibians, mammals, and once it was tried withhumans, however both attempts to do this with the humans failed. The secondmethod of cloning is achieved by using an adult cell, not an embryo. To do thisscientists remove an egg cell from a female, and remove the chromosomes,nucleus, etc, leaving no way for the mother interfere with the genetic part ofthe reproduction. However, the parts of the egg cell needed for cell growth anddevelopment are left intact.
The cell from an adult mammal is then taken awayfrom its owner. Being placed in a cure dish, the cell is starved of nutrients,but is still kept alive. The reason for this: the cell must stop dividing inorder for cloning to take place. The nucleus from this cell is removed. Thenucleus and the egg cell are placed next to each other, and electrical chargesare emitted into them. These electrical charges make the two fuse, or combinetogether.
After about 6 weeks, the egg cell, now artificially fertilized, isplaced back into the uterus of another female of the same species. Allowed togrow and develop as normal, the baby is born after the normal amount of timeneeded to let a baby develop. The result: a physical clone of the animal. Somefacts about cloning A friend of yours has an ingenious plan to take a cell froma dead person like Hitler, clone him, and try to take over the world, with hishelp. First off, your friend needs adjustment. Secondly, you couldn’t clonehim to be the same person, with the same personality as before.
Being placed ina different environment, with different situations, he would not developemotionally as he had before. On the contrary, you could turn him into a littlechoirboy if placed into the right situations. So if it’s that easy, whydoesn’t a person like Bill Gates clone him self, just for fun` or to have aliving memoriam of himself when he’s gone? It isn’t that easy. The UnitedStates have taken steps to ban the cloning of people, passing the bill againstit two years ago. It’s also expensive, and Dolly the sheep was successfullycloned after 276 unsuccessful tries.
So does anybody own cloning? Yes, believeit or not. Although the creators of Dolly were the first to clone an adultmammal, the company that owns the patent is the Massachusetts company ofAdvanced Cell Technology (ACT). A common misconception: clones will NOT have thesame DNA as the other animal. A type of DNA called mitochondrial DNA is notremoved from the mother during the fertilization. This DNA is used for energyproduction cannot be transferred with the host’s nucleus.
So, it also is leftintact in the egg cell for the fertilization. In the present and future ofcloning What may we be expecting from cloning in the future? Try this for size:scientists recently made the news for cloning the first pigs. And pigs are oneof the animals more closely related to humans. . .
. so, I’ll let you make yourown inference. Also, the team at the Roslin Institute has figured out how tomake a starved cell able to reproduce again. Their patent is still pending.
Haveyou wondered why the team used a sheep to clone? The answer: sheep are closelyrelated to humans, just as pigs are, and in Scotland, where Dolly was cloned,sheep are very very very very very cheap. Some have had ideas of using cloningto bring back extinct species, and, mainly, help the endangered species go backto how they once were. Also, there are teams in different places working on waysto clone just organs of mammals for transplants. However, this is expected toturn out with poor results, because it is likely that the body will reject theseorgans, as it would others. The End While many believe cloning is an unnecessaryevil, others believe it will become a chief way reproduce crops, or livestockthat have favorable qualities about them.
I believe that cloning can be usefulin these ways, but very dangerous in others. What I’m saying is that we’remeddling with technologies we don’t know much about and further researchshould be done to discover what is needed to master this science before we gomaking our own species of animals. We are still like novices to this newscience, and should respect it, not toy with it.
