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Human Cloning Controversy

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Attack of the Controversy: Todays outlook on human cloning.


Cloning Humans is a popular theme in the science fiction media, be it Star Wars with it's legions of Storm Troopers or some hokey SyFy Channel Saturday Night Matinée flick.  The idea of human cloning is a great idea for fiction, but it seems to make many people anxious.  Aside from twins, having someone else that possesses your genetic material daunting, even insulting to those who put such a strong emphasis on their individuality.  While there are many potential medical applications of Cloning human tissues, there are many obstacles regarding it's practicality and ethical merit.  With the advancements thanks to the Human Genome Project and Stem Cell research, we've been able to make leaps and bounds with genetic engineering as a whole, and given the difficulties in cloning lower primates (), cloning a human may be a while, and yet still right around the corner, in terms of technological development.  

A brief history of clones
Cloning is producing an organism through natural or artificial means that is genetically identical to the original parent or DNA donor.  Prokaryote single celled organisms reproduce asexually by splitting in two, each resulting organism identical to the last.  Some invertebrates like Sea Cucumbers, Sea Stars and Hydras, are capable of the same by cutting themselves in half and turning the resulting halves into fully formed adult animals, which, again, are clones of the original independent of each other.  Identical twins are natural clones of each other, both carrying the same genes and having be derived from the same initial sperm and egg, they even share the same placenta in the mammalian womb.  The first clone was created by Robert Briggs and his graduate student in 1952, in the form of a cloned frog.   This was accomplished by transferring the nucleus from a developing frog cell and injecting it into an egg without the nucleus.  It was not deemed a complete success due to their using embryonic cells rather than the cells of an adult animal, and they also had successively less success the farther along in development they extracted their nucleus' for transplant. (Panno, 21) The next leap was taken by John Gurdon who set out to clone the first adult frog.  He selected a larger species, Xenopus Laevis, which not only produced larger eggs, but clear eggs as well.  He took samples of the epithelial cells from the intestinal tract of the aforementioned species and put them in a culture disk, then taking an egg and destroying the nucleus with a UV light, he injected one of the cultured cells into the egg, successfully producing a tadpole and in repeat experiments, a few adult frogs.  However, Grudon's success was deemed only partial in peer review when it was argued that because of the source of the cells, the intestinal tracts of the frog, composed mainly of stem cells, it was more like cloning an embryo like the Briggs experiment.  The experiment was not without some success, however because it proved that cells retained their totipotency or potential or developing in a specialized way, which would be useful for human interaction.  The first successfully cloned mammal was Dolly the sheep, cloned from a six year old sheep, the donor cells gathered from the mother's udder in 1997. (Panno, 26)  This was a major leap in the technology, as has been prior achievements in embryonic mammalian cloning, but no true adult clone had been cultivated before.   Several other animals have been cloned  since, from a mice, horses, and cats.  There have also been some livestock clones of the endangered Gaur, a type of Ox, who died shortly after it's birth.  ( Bailey)  In the year 2000, the first primate, a Rhesus monkey named Tetra was successfully cloned by means of artificial embryo splitting.  (Genomics.gov)   Scientists removed a single already fertilized egg and waited until it had divided into eight cells, from there, they split the zygote into four parts, each which two cells each and implanted the identical cells into surrogate mothers and allowed them to come to term.  The only survivor was Tetra, which is Greek for four. (Medindia.net) While Tetra was the first primate clone she has only pioneered the pathway for the potential of human cloning.  

The Method
The process for creating reproductive clones of adult animals is called Somatic Cell Nucleic Transfer, the process of which involves replacing the nucleus of a unfertilized egg, and replacing it with cells from an already living organism.  In natural human reproduction, the ovum (egg) and the sperm each carry 23 chromosomes, that, when united, make 46.  The resulting offspring is made of the combined genetic material of both parents.  Removing the nucleus of the reproductive cell would  remove the 23 chromosomes that are already present, and replace them with the ones that the original mammal already had, thus the organisms' genes are not influenced by any new information. Because the egg now already carries the 46 chromosomes needed to create an adult, (human for this example,) all that needs to be done now is making the egg's cells act as if it were fertilized and begin dividing.  After a number of divisions the zygote is implanted into a surrogate mother and hopefully is allowed to come to term.  (Utah.edu)  (see figure 3A )
Figure 3A (Barlow, 09)

SCNT has been successful in several species such as rodents, sheep, pigs and various other farm animals, as well as cats and dogs, but primates are a bit more challenging.  Since the technology to clone animals using nucleus transfer was available in the mid nineties with the cloning of Dolly the Sheep, it would be fair to assume that you could do the same to a monkey as you would do to a  sheep.  However, the  proteins that are very important to cell divisions called spindle proteins are located very close to the chromosomes in primate eggs, and if the nucleus is removed, the ability for that cell to divide properly is also removed.  Animals such as cats, rabbits and mice, there is no such problem because the required proteins are scattered throughout the egg, easing the process of removing the nucleus for the transfer process.   (Genomics.gov)  However, just like the leap from the frogs to Dolly, we can almost certainly expect that at sometime someone will figure out how to successfully clone an embryo from both monkeys and primates.  That step, now in 2009, maybe closer then we think.

Breakthrough
According to Science Daily in a article posted in 2004, Korean Scientists reported on successful human embryonic clones used to obtain a stem cell line, though it later shown to be a fraud.  (Resnik, 2006)  The data was found to be inconsistent and falsified due to research misbehavior and misconduct regarding the data submitted to scientific journals.  As we know the ability to successfully achieve a somatic nucleus cell transfer in a primate was blocked by interfering with the proteins that were near by the nucleus that supported proper cell division.  "In the 2003 study, researchers found basic molecular obstacles that blocked normal cell development, such as absent or deficient proteins, chaotic mitotic spindle structures and misaligned chromosomes. While cell division superficially seemed normal, chromosomal problems existed within each individual cell. "  (Science Daily 04)   The real success occurred in late 2007 when the first true embryonic primate stem cells were cloned.  The failures of the past were due to the methods of locating and extracting the nucleus in the egg that would result in damaged eggs and essentially cause the egg to abort after 8-16 divisions.  (Sciencedaily.com 07)  The success was due in part by the advance in technology and the methods that were used, including imaging software called Oosight Spindle Imaging software.  (Sciencdaily.com, 07)  There is an unreliable source reporting of a study made in the last two years as the date is note available, that, likewise, human embryonic stem cells have also been cultivated from cloned embryos but the information is iffy at the moment but the prospect of future human cloning seems to be closer than ever.
The argument.
The religious side of the debate tends to be concerned with two main concepts based on their theology and perceptions of scientists.  "The scientific once tried to raise the debate : " Have we the right to counteract , irreversibly, the evolutionary wisdom of millions of years, in order to satisfy the ambitions and curiosity of a few scientists?"  (Alonso 8)  Is it fair to say that the desire to explore human cloning is only exclusive to a few scientists?  The phrase, "You shouldn't try to play god," is a popular line in many movies concerning cloning, a great example being Jurassic Park, but it applies well in this perspective.  The religious majority believe that all life, be it through evolutionary means or creationism, was initially created by a purposeful creator.  By playing with the genetics and creating life, especially a new human life through genetic engineering would be considered an abomination in the most extreme of religious ideologies.  A foundational aspect of modern Monotheism is the concept of a soul.   The Catholic church, as of 1999, has banned reproduction via asexual or agamic means.  It cites: "A perfect identity of a person understood in his ontological and psychological reality, would not necessarily deprive [from cloning] the spiritual soul, the essential constituent of the human species which is created directly by god."  (Alonso 10)  
If and when there are clonal humans we can expect that there may arise some identity issues among the cloned individuals.  How would a clone feel if he or she is being raised by someone who is essentially themselves?  Once they realize that they are more or less just a copy of a genetic donor, rather than conceived naturally through random chance like his peers, would he feel isolated, or perhaps pressured into living up to the standards left by his predecessor?  (Pence 27)  What of the public viewpoint?  Will they be accepting of the clones, or will they discriminate against the new sub-race so to speak?  Words like grotesque insulting, and repulsive are often used by many, perhaps  and likely because of the stake that people put into their individuality.  The repulsion of the idea of having clones around may invoke a social uproar of which  we could liken to social discriminations today in issues like homosexuality and the various religious groups.  
One major deterrent to human cloning would be to consider the success rate of clones as well as other physiological aspects.  It took 227 tries to clone Dolly, ( OSPA, 98) the first mammal ever cloned, and Tetra was the only surviver of the four divided cells that they had made in the lab.    There is a high failure rate in animal cloning, especially mammals,  (Mollard 05) and in hundreds of embryos implanted, few ever come to term and become adult animals.  That isn't to say that cloning should not be improved or pursued, but in the issue of human cloning the cost may out rank the benefits at our current technological level.  "Cloned newborn animals are often significantly overweight as compared to normal pups and have a large and dysfunctional placenta (this is often referred to as "Large Offspring Syndrome"). Reproductive cloning is, therefore, opposed adamantly by a vast majority of scientists, doctors and the general public at large. "  (Mollard 05)  There are obviously benefits from using the technology in fields such as stem cell research but due to the damage that can be done to a person on a physical and emotional level in merely developing the child, it may not be worth the cost to pursue.
The cloning technology can be used practically, and not necessarily for cloning exact duplicates.  There are those win the homosexual community, for instance, who may desire to have a child based on their combined genetics and the processes used in cloning could potentially be used to create a child for to male parents raise, carried by a surrogate mother, though this technology can also be utilized with the in-vitro method.  The methods and technologies developed in the process of achieving human cloning could also be used to engineer natural resistance to some genetic diseases that would otherwise cause an early death or chronic illnesses, like cystic fibrosis.  Curing of genetic conditions could be one of the most beneficial use of cloning the technology can offer and as of yet, cloning has only been used to supplement the work in stem cell research, which as of late has been much of the point in using the technologies.  A more direct use of cloning that encompasses what stem cell therapeutic cloning would achieve when regarding reproductive human cloning would be subvert genetic diseases already mentioned.  If the parents in question are at risk for a disease the could be offered the option of cloning   or developing a child from their collective DNA, while the lab technicians would correct any genetic errors that could take place and allow the couple a healthy and happy baby, rather than having to agonize over aborting a child who may die before their first birthday. (Winters, 59)

The future for cloning has been jumbled in a rush of policy and politics.  Perhaps some of it has been in misunderstanding.  Are we giving cloning a fair chance?  Cloning is probably best kept to the laboratory and not used to develop anything more then a basis for stem cells due to a lack of success rates in the reproductive area and the problem with overgrown offspring offer too much risk for the mother at least in this time.  The religious backlash that may come if a clone was born in the next year would be completely unnecessary and not helpful in the least regarding fields of study that have been shown to be successful such as using stem cells to clone human tissue.  One should not use science fiction as a basis for their opinion but they have often made good points about the potential future for clones.  As Attack of the Clones illustrated, the mass army of clones used for the war were expendable and used primarily as tools to spare the masses of natural humans and other sentient life forms the cost of life in their bloody conflict.  Would that be the future of cloning in humans?  All of that aside, the future of cloning depends on responsibility and the practical application of the technology, but the technology should not be completely banned out of reaction and fear.
Klotzko, Arlene Judith. A clone of your own? : the science and ethics of cloning. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Wilmut, Ian.  After Dolly : the uses and misuses of human cloning. New York: W.W. Norton , 2006.

Panno, Joseph. Animal cloning : the science of nuclear transfer  New York, NY : Facts on File, 2005

Alonso, Kenneth. Shall we clone a man : genetic engineering and the issues of life : a view from a catholic physician scientist. Atlanta, Georgia: Allegro Press, 1999.

Kolata, Gina Bari. Clone : the road to Dolly, and the path ahead. New York: W. Morrow & Co, 1998.
National Human Genome Research Institute. "Cloning." Genomics.gov. March 2009. National Human Genome Research Institute. Nov 3 www.genome.gov/25020028.

Genetic Science Learning Center. "What is Cloning?." Learn.Genetics 5 November 2009 learn.genetics.utah.edu/conten…

Pence, Gregory.  Flesh of my Flesh: The ethics of cloning humans. Boston: Rowman and Littlefield publishing, 1998.

University Of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "Efforts To Clone Primates Move Forward." ScienceDaily 13 December 2004. 26 November 2009 .

Oregon Health & Science University. "Primate Embryonic Stem Cells Successfully Cloned." ScienceDaily 15 November 2007. 26 November 2009 .

Mollard Richard . "Reproductive Cloning ." International Society for Stem Cell Research. 2005.  November 25 2009 .

OSPA. "Cloning: Present Uses and Promises." Offices of Science Policy and Analysis. April 27, 1998. November 22nd 2009 .

AlphaMed. "Study Reports Successful Cloning of Human Embryo using adult DNA." AlphaMed
2007. November 21, 2009 .

Bailey, Britt. Cloning the Gaur." Cetos. Center for Ethics and Toxics.  November 23, 2009 .

Winters, Paul. Cloning. Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA, 1998.
I wrote this for my final project in Contemporary Issues in Science.

The teachers really stroked my ego by giving me an A: I really didn't believe them though.

But when they gave me a 30/40 on the rough draft and a 40/40 on the final, I can't complain.
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