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What is Cloning?

Cloning is a technique that has been studied for over 2000 years, Cloning consists of a molecule, cell or organism that is being copied to be genetically identical as its parental molecule. You can complete this procedure on any living organism but is it ethically correct to do so?

Cloning Diagram

How to Clone

Cloning utilizes copies of DNA, the procedure begins by separating the DNA that contains the target genes. DNA is then placed in a fragment called a vector, at this step this has become the recombinant DNA molecule, this then transports the gene to the host cell whether that be an egg or something else that can keep it alive. This begins the cloning process.

Benefits of cloning

There are some benefits to Cloning. For example, we can keep certain animals from going extinct as sometimes when the animals are dying off it can be extremely difficult to find a surrogate mother. Another benefit to cloning is gene therapy, Gene therapy consists of cloning embryonic cells to obtain organs for transfers. Gene therapy can also be used to treat nerve cells that have been injured.

Dolly the Sheep

Problems with cloning

Although there are some benefits to cloning living organisms there are also many drawbacks. For example, Clones suffer from age related diseases very early in their life, Like Dolly the sheep who was a clone created in the late 90s who ended up needing to be euthanized because of its chronic arthritis at the age of 6 which is only known to be 60% of a sheep's average life expectancy. Another problem with Cloning is that clones eliminate genetic variation which will lead to organisms being more susceptible to catching deadly diseases and could also lead to inbreeding. The telomere theory is a process that with-go's during DNA synthesis. It is where Polymerase cannot replicate all Amino acids, this is a result of shortened telomeres of the clones. Eventually, cells will stop dividing and dire regions will be deleted.

Jesse Gelsinger

Jesse Gelsinger was a 17 year old boy who was suffering from the disease, ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC), as a teenager he volunteered to use his body for gene therapy to help find a cure for babies born with the disease OTC. The gene therapy in his case consisted of corrective genes being fused into his body. Unfortunately, Gelsinger suffered from a chain reaction collapsing most organ systems in his body when he died on September 17, 1999. It is said that the treatment had an overwhelming inflammatory response to his body. 6 other casualties were reported after gene therapy to research their heart but it is said that it did not have anything to do with the gene therapy.

Ethical Problems with cloning and gene therapy

There are 26+ counties that have banned the use of cloning in their regions: Australia, Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea. As seen this does not include the United States. Cloning humans would have to involve a human sacrificing their body to cloning leading to a morally ethical debate as human cells would have to be broken down in a test tube which is morally unacceptable. Cloning also goes against ancient/religious traditions and customs. At this time in our society only the rich can access gene therapy. The problem with that is therapeutic gene work could be used in vain, to make them more attractive, or more intelligent.

Conclusion

Cloning and Gene therapy are amazing finds by mankind, but with the ethics and morals that have been sculpted for the last thousands of years by society it makes it hard to justify completing such tasks, and if trying at what cost? There are many implications and devastating consequences that could happen when preceding these specific tasks.

Citations

• Ayala, F. J. (2015, July 21). Cloning humans? biological, ethical, and social considerations. PNAS. Retrieved November 16, 2021, from https://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/8879.
• Cloning fact sheet. Genome.gov. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2021, from https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Cloning-Fact-Sheet.
• Human cloning policies. Center for Genetics and Society. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2021, from https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/internal-content/human-cloning-policies#:~:text=Many%20countries%20have%20passed%20legislation,Romania%2C%20Russia%2C%20Slovakia%2C%20South.
• Petechuk, D. (2004). Clone and Cloning. In K. L. Lerner & B. W. Lerner (Eds.), The Gale Encyclopedia of Science (3rd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 899-902). Gale. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3418500521/GVRL.eb09?u=miss91533&sid=bookmark-GVRL.eb09&xid=eb868057
• Roslin Institute. (1970, July 2). The life of dolly. The University of Edinburgh. Retrieved November 16, 2021, from https://www.ed.ac.uk/roslin/about/dolly/facts/life-of-dolly.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, August 5). Jesse Gelsinger. Wikipedia. Retrieved November 16, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Gelsinger