By: Jennifer Cooper, Jina Pak, Melissa Campos, and Pooja Gadi
Definition of Cloning: Cloning genetic material is taken from an adult cell and is placed into an egg. "Under the right conditions, that egg with a complete set of genes, with a complete genomic material, could develop into an embryo." -
DNA technology advancements in cloning
-Instead of Human Clones they will be called "Single Parent Children"
-Identical twins are natural clones
-If you have a child and you also have an identical twin your identical twin is technically also the genetic father of your child.
" There's two specific skills that infertility doctors have that are necessary for cloning. One is micro-manipulation of embryos. In this case, to take a human egg, to remove the nucleus, and then to replace that nucleus with a nucleus from a somatic cell, a body cell of the person who is going to be cloned. That's a technique that infertility physicians use in manipulating embryos. They don't use that particular technique, but they use other micro-manipulations that would permit that to do that one, too."(PBS)
"Secondly, and as importantly, is taking that embryo and implanting in the woman's uterus. That's not as hard to do as the other, but it's a technique, again, that infertility physicians do everyday. Or if not everyday, very often. They know how to do that. And then monitoring it to see if you have a pregnancy." (PBS)
Human Cloning Steps
Pros and Cons of Human Cloning
"Some people argue that cloning is the logical next step in reproductive technology. Identical twins are natural clones, so reproductive cloning can be regarded as a technological version of a natural process. If a couple is infertile, why shouldn’t they be able to produce clones of themselves? If a couple has lost a child, why shouldn’t they be able to replace that loved individual with a clone if that is possible? Equally if someone has made a great contribution to science, music, the arts or literature, it seems like a good idea to produce more of them in the hope that we might benefit even more from what would effectively be a much longer working life. What is more, cloning a child could produce a tissue match for treatment of a life-threatening disease."
"Others feel equally strongly that human cloning is completely wrong. With the state of the science as it is at the moment it would involve hundreds of damaged pregnancies to achieve one single live cloned baby. What is more, all the evidence suggests that clones are unhealthy and often have a number of built-in genetic defects which lead to premature aging and death. It would be completely wrong to bring a child into the world knowing that it was extremely likely to be affected by problems like these. The dignity of human life and the genetic uniqueness we all have would be attacked if cloning became common place. People might be cloned unwillingly – we all leave thousands if not millions of cells around everyday as we go about our normal lives shedding skin! Who will control who gets cloned? Companies are already making money storing tissue from dead children and partners until the time that human cloning becomes available. How much scope will there be for unscrupulous dealings if human cloning becomes a reality?"