Clonning benefit

¶ … Cloning

History and Background of Cloning.

Possible Negative Consequences and their Consequences.

Alternative Solutions.

Rebuttals of Opponents.

Concusion.

An Analysis of the Potential Benefits of Cloning

The ongoing heated debates concerning the ethical aspects of using human stem-cells, a therapeutic form of cloning, to advance medicine highlight the need for better oversight of science when real people are involved. In reality, though, stem-cells appear positively benign when compared with the potential benefits - and risks some critics say -- to be realized through the cloning of animals and possibly humans. The vivid scenes portrayed in the "Jurassic Park" movies, though, are intended to entertain and shock rather than educate, and many observers may come away from these motion pictures with a skewed perception of what cloning is really all about and the potential benefits it represents for the human race. To clear up some of the mystery and misperceptions, this paper provides an overview of cloning and an analysis of the potential benefits to be realized through cloning technology. An assessment of the possible negative consequences and the impact of cloning technology is followed by a discussion of possible alternative approaches and a discussion of what opponents have to say about these issues. A summary of the research and salient findings are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Analysis

History and Background of Cloning. Cloning is a fundamental component of the biological processes of the majority of living things because the body cells of plants and animals are actually clones that are derived from the mitosis of a single fertilized egg (Baird, 2002). According to this author, "A clone is the name for a group of organisms or other living matter with exactly the same genetic material. The word clone has been applied to cells as well as to organisms, so a group of cells stemming from a single cell is also called a clone. Cloning is the production of an exact genetic duplicate of a living organism or cell" (Baird, 2002, p. 20). For many observers today, though, the processes involved in cloning can be confusing and may not be able to be satisfied with a simple definition. Nevertheless, cloning frequently takes place in the natural world without any human involvement; for instance, in humans and other higher animals, clones develop naturally through genetically identical multiple births (Baird, 2002). Single-celled organisms including bacteria, protozoa, and yeast, also produce genetically identical offspring through asexual reproduction; offspring from these organisms develop from only one parent and are therefore considered to be clones (Baird, 2002). Likewise, plants are able to reproduce asexually through a process called vegetative propagation and a number of plants exhibit this ability by producing suckers, tubers, or bulbs to colonize the area surrounding the parent. In addition, simple animals such as hydras and flatworms can be cloned through asexual reproduction or the process of regeneration (Baird, 2002).

When it is used as an artificial technique, though, cloning is accomplished through nuclear transfer that involves taking the nucleus of a cultured cell and transferring it to an unfertilized egg cell, which has had its genetic material removed (Baird, 2002). In order to effectively understand the science of human cloning, the term cloning must be further defined to differentiate between two basic applications for the technology: (a) reproductive cloning and (b) therapeutic cloning. According to Baird, reproductive cloning uses the cloning procedure to produce a clonal embryo that is implanted in a woman's womb with intent to create a fully formed living child (Baird, 2002). By contrast, therapeutic cloning uses the cloning procedure to produce a clonal embryo; however, rather than being implanted in a womb and brought to term, the clonal embryo is used to generate stem cells (Baird, 2002).

While the technologies supporting cloning techniques today are highly sophisticated and require highly skilled technicians (this is changing, though - see further discussion below), the ability of some animals such as earthworms and starfish to be cloned simply by dividing them into two pieces has been known since ancient times (Baird, 2002). With these invertebrates, each piece has the ability to regenerate into a complete organism, but scientific efforts to successfully clone vertebrates have proven to be much more difficult. According to Baird:

Beginning in the late 1800s, scientists began to question why a cell develops to become specialized in function despite the fact that all cells in an organism originate from the same fertilized egg. In 1902, Hans Spemann, a German embryologist, split a two-celled salamander embryo in two. Following the division, each cell grew to be an adult salamander. Spemann's success with splitting a single cell into two disproved earlier hypotheses that the amount of genetic information carried by a cell diminishes with each division. (2002, p. 20)

By 1928, Spemann has concluded his first nuclear transfer experiment in which he transferred the nucleus of a salamander embryo cell to a cell without a nucleus; this single cell then grew a normal salamander embryo, thereby proving that the nucleus from an early embryo cell possessed the capability of guiding the complete growth of a different salamander (Baird, 2002). The author emphasizes that at this point in time, "Spemann had created a clone. The cloning of higher organisms would be proposed by Spemann as the next logical step; however, he was unable to technically devise a method to attempt any such experiments. No one would succeed in doing so until Robert Briggs and Thomas J. King successfully cloned tadpoles in 1952" (Baird, 2002, p. 20). The history of innovations in cloning then leads to two development biologists at what is now the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia; Robert Briggs and Thomas King developed the process of nuclear transfer using body cells from frog embryos to produce tadpoles and their work fueled renewed interest within the scientific community, and throughout the 1950s, scientists clone amphibians such as frogs and salamanders using nuclear transfer (it remains unclear, though, whether the specialization of cells means that only certain cells have certain genes, or if the genes that are not used by the cell are just inactivated) (Baird, 2002). During the early 1960s, a British molecular biologist conducting research on nuclear transfer successfully produced adult frogs from tadpole intestine cells, thereby proving that even specialized cells are totipotent (a term that refers to the organism's ability to retain sufficient information to produce a complete organism) (Baird, 2002). During the 1960s and 1970s, though, efforts by the scientific community to create a cloned vertebrate that could survive to adulthood were universally unsuccessful. In this regard, Baird (2002) notes that although producing a viable cloned vertebrate appeared beyond the ken of scientists at the time, cloning technology took another turn in 1972, with the first cloning of a gene. Further, during the 1970s, scientists injected human DNA into newly fertilized mouse eggs to produce mice that were part human. When these genetically altered mice reproduce, they transmit their human genetic material to their offspring, creating "transgenic" mice, a procedure that provides scientists with the ability to study different human diseases by creating mice with the appropriate genetic composition (Baird, 2002).

Further innovations in cloning technology during the 1980s involved the first mammals, sheep, and cows being cloned from embryonic cells; however, these animals were cloned from embryonic cells through a process known as "embryo splitting," wherein genetic material of both parents is retained because the embryos are sexually fertilized (Baird, 2002). These clones from embryonic cells from the same parents fertilized at different times are as different as siblings; this cloning technique has proven particularly useful to livestock breeders and by the 1990s, using this technique, various animals such as pigs, sheep, cows, and rabbits have been cloned (Baird, 2002).

The world's first mammal cloned from a cell of an adult animal, a sheep named "Dolly," was born in 1996; however, her existence was not reported to the world until February 1997 (Baird, 2002). According to this author, "Dolly was cloned from a cell taken from the udder of an adult ewe at the Roslin Institute in Scotland by Ian Wilmut and his colleagues. The following year, scientists at the University of Hawaii cloned more than 50 mice from adult cells, creating three generations of identical laboratory animals" (p. 20). In his book, on Cloning, Harris (2004) reports that, "The birth of Dolly, the world-famous cloned sheep, triggered the most extraordinary re-awakening of interest in, and concern about, cloning and indeed about scientific and technological innovation and its regulation and control. She has fuelled debate in a number of fora: genetic and scientific, political and moral, journalistic and literary" (p. 1). The controversy over Dolly has created a number of misconceptions and outright fallacies concerning cloning, though, including the myth that this lone sheep somehow represents a danger to humanity, the human gene pool, genetic diversity, the ecosystem, the world as it is currently known, and to the very survival of the human species (Harris, 2004).

Today, the biotechnology of cloning is advancing at more rapidly than ever and there have been reports concerning a newly developed method to create genetically identical copies of animals, cheaper, easier, and better than existing methods (Baird, 2002). For example, the most common instrument used in cloning today is known as a "micromanipulator," described by Baird as being an expensive machine that requires the use of a skilled technician to capture an egg cell under the microscope, insert a very fine needle to suck out its nucleus, and then use another needle to transfer a nucleus from the animal to be cloned. "This process is tricky and time consuming, and results are somewhere in the 25% range. In the new technique, egg cells are split in half under a microscope using a very thin blade. The halves are allowed to heal and then a dye is introduced to identify the halves containing the nucleus" (Baird, 2002, p. 20). The two halves of embryo that contain the original nucleus are then discarded, a processs that leaves the empty cytoplasts alone (these are the cells that do not contain the nucleus); in order to create the cloned embryo, a cell from an adult animal is fused first with one cytoplast, then another, by quickly introducing an electric current (Baird, 2002). According to this analyst, "This new method of cloning is much cheaper and can be performed without the need of a skilled technician. Another advantage is that this method will be relatively easy to automate, with the end result being mass produced cloned embryos. A major concern of this evolving cloning technique is that its cheapness (the electrofusion machine can be purchased for around $3,500) will allow increased attempts at human cloning" (Baird, 2002, p. 20).

Furthermore, cloning technology has been extended into some areas that appear to represent very real opportunities for improvement in the human condition. For instance, therapeutic cloning is used to clone embryos that are not used for reproductive purposes but as sources of cells, tissue and possibly organs for research, therapy and transplantation. "So-called therapeutic cloning," Harris notes, "involves the cloning of an embryo to make the cells, tissue or organs of that embryo compatible with a proposed recipient" (2004, p. 113). According to this author, stem cells represent the most likely application of therapeutic cloning in the foreseeable future; not surprisingly and notwithstanding federal government opposition, a massive research effort is underway to encourage the untold potential of this type of cloning research (Harris, 2004).

According to Baird, scientists have reported that the cloning of animals, particularly those that have been modified genetically, has a wide range of medical, agricultural, and industrial applications; for instance, if human genes were introduced into animals such as pigs, cows, and sheep, such transgenic animals would possess the capability to produce a wide variety of proteins and enzymes (Baird, 2002). "Large numbers of transgenic animals could produce vast quantities of drugs and other substances more efficiently and at a lower cost than is currently possible with today's bioengineering technology," Baird adds (2002, p. 20). Future innovations in cloning will ultimately result in other practical applications as well, including the potential genetically modified animals that could provide organs for human transplants, the mass production of healthier, more productive, disease resistant farm animals, more nutritious produce, and the development of crops that are disease, insect, and drought resistant (Baird, 2002).

Furthermore, future research and innovations in cloning may also contribute to disease treatments for humans by allowing scientists to reprogram cells. Through this research, for example, skin cells could be reprogrammed into the insulin producing cells in the pancreas; such skin cells would then be introduced into the pancreas of diabetic patients, a treatment that holds the promise of enabling them to produce their own insulin (Baird, 2002). Yet another example of the potential benefits to be derived from future therapeutic cloning involves Parkinson's disease, a degenerative disease affecting neurons. "Because neurons do not regenerate, cloning research could allow the reprogramming of cells into neurons to replace those damaged by the disease" (Baird, 2002, p. 20).

By using cloning techniques, human organ transplantation has the potential to become more successful, a feature that is especially important due to the ongoing chronic shortage of organs; today, just a small percentage of patients that stand to benefit from such transplants actually receive them, and there remain important issues of rejection mean the recipient is forced into a regime of drug taking to combat foreign body tissue rejection (Baird, 2002). In response, researchers are attempting to develop genetically modified pigs as an alternative source of organs; transplanting organs from one species to another is called xenotransplantation, and through nuclear transfer, transgenic animals could be produced that create human proteins on their cell surfaces, thereby reducing the risk of rejection during xenotransplantation (Baird, 2002).

Beyond the foregoing known and potential benefits, there are also a number of practical applications that could be realized through the cloning of actual human beings. According to Baird, "Infertile couples not wishing to adopt could use cloning to have children who are biologically related to them. Cloning could also be used to produce offspring free of certain diseases; a fertilized ovum could be cloned and the duplicate tested for disease and/or genetic defects. If the clone were free from defects, then the other would be as well and could be implanted in the womb" (2002, p. 20). Today, using in-vitro fertilization, many women have implants of a number of fertilized ova into their uterus in a "shotgun" effort to produce a pregnancy; however, some women are only able to supply one egg during this process. By using cloning technologies, Baird notes that one egg could be transformed into eight, a feature that significantly contributes to the potential positive outcome for a viable pregnancy; however, many researchers believe that in the future, cell cloning therapies can provide cures or more effective treatments for a number of diseases that afflict humanity, and even organ regeneration could be accomplished by reprogramming a patient's own cells, thereby obviating the requirement to create and destroy human embryos (Baird, 2002). In sum, this author maintains that, "As the field of biotechnology expands, so do the possibilities and ethical responsibilities" (Baird, 2002, p. 20), which leads to the several possible negative consequences of cloning technology gone astray.

Possible Negative Consequences and Their Consequences. The ethical issues involved in ongoing human stem cell research introduce a number of controversial and important issues concerning their possible negative consequences. A number of these issues involve the different sources used to harvest stem cells. According to Harris (2004), "In principle stem cells can be obtained from adults, from umbilical cord blood, from fetal tissue and from embryonic tissue. Clearly there are widely differing views as to the ethics of sourcing stem cells in these four different ways" (p. 115). While researchers continue to identify superior potential sources such as amniotic fluid, there remains a general consensus among researchers that human embryos remain the best source of stem cells for therapeutic purposes (Harris, 2004).

According to Baird (2002), "Around the world a debate is raging over the subject of human cloning. At the core of this controversial issue are ethical, religious, societal, scientific, and medical concerns" (p. 19). The potential for misuse of cloning technology is very real, of course, but so is the possibility of a radioactive dirty bomb being used against the United States and its interests abroad in the future. The potential impact of the negative consequences currently being attributed to cloning technology fail to take into considerations the possibility that the present generation could attain the scientific knowledge and technical ability needed to eliminate genetic defects that contribute to common diseases and directly intervene in shaping human evolution (Baird, 2002). These concerns demand that a technologically literate society be developed, enabling well-informed decisions to be made within the controversial realm of the biotechnologies dealing with human genetics (Baird, 2002).

There is also the controversial issue of whether or not embryos or fetuses may be deliberately produced in order to be sources of stem cells, whether or not they are also intended to survive stem cell harvesting and grow into healthy adults (Harris, 2004). Likewise, as Mcgee (2000) points out, if current trends continue, there is the potential for human beings to be created without the need for the sexual union between men and women, something that carries with it some profound implications for the traditional family unit: "It goes without saying that human cloning does not involve, or need to involve, sexual intercourse," Mcgee advises. "As one probes the seeming asexuality of cloning, one is initially drawn to the metaphors that feed and follow the asexual nature of the technology" (p. 266). Likewise, Lyon (2002) reports that, "Cloning, however, introduces an entirely new creation story, one which challenges our 'continuous history' through human reproduction (p. 7). Clearly, such approaches to human reproduction negate the intimacy that has historically been part and parcel of the husband and wife dyad, and even in vitro fertilization techniques involve some interaction between the male and female. By sharp contrast, Mcgee emphasizes that, "Nuclear transfer of genetic information from a single human that results in the production, or at least is envisioned as having primacy in the creation, of another single human certainly seems to be the reproductive technology least tied to human intimacy" (p. 266)

Alternative Solutions. While the technologies that support cloning techniques continue to be refined and advanced, there remains a fundamental problem concerning how best to achieve the maximum scientific and medical benefits for humanity while balancing the increasingly vocal criticisms being directed at the practice. It would seem apparent that many of these criticisms are misdirected and ill-informed at best, and tend to rely on religious or philosophical grounds. In this regard, Mcgee (2000) points out that, "Philosophical debate about cloning has been mounted but along fairly predictable lines, with scant examination of the implications of cloning for human nature, social institutions, or the practice of basic biological science" (p. 266). It is also clear that governmental agencies could provide better information to the general public and clear up some of the misperceptions and confusion concerning the technology, rather than issuing blanket statements in opposition against one form of cloning that may influence how people perceived all such technologies (Dresser, 2003). Moreover, as Hall (2003) also notes, "The public debate on cloning, as on embryonic stem cells, has repeatedly been driven by these extra-scientific announcements mediated by the press. These events undoubtedly qualify as news, and yet at the same time do not qualify as science -- if we understand the latter to be a rigorously executed, socially responsible, and peer-reviewed published piece of experimentation that, pending reproducibility, at least has the whiff of truth about it" (p. 11).

Another alternative advocated by Kraemer and Longtin (2002) would be for Congress to require all scientists that work with embryonic stem cells to follow a set of guidelines proposed by the National Institutes of Health, even in those cases where those researchers do not receive any government grants. "These guidelines," the authors add, "published in the Federal Register on August 25, 2000, would allow federally funded scientists to conduct research on stem cells obtained from embryos that had been produced by in vitro fertilization clinics and were slated for destruction" (Kraemer & Longtin, 2002, p. 59).

Rebuttals of Opponents. Opponents of cloning have tended to resort to various aspects of the technology that play on people's emotions rather than their sensibility. For instance, in his essay, "Surplus Embryos, Nonreproductive Cloning and the Intend/foresee Distinction," FitzPatrick (2003) notes that, "One interesting view to emerge from the stem cell debate is that while it is sometimes permissible to use human embryos for stem cell derivation, it is wrong to create them just for this purpose" (p. 29). In addition, other members of Congress and government officials have promulgated new regulations to govern cloning that may have failed to take into account potential constitutional challenges to regulation. According to Dresser (2003), "Some argue that regulation would violate constitutionally protected rights to reproduce or to engage in research, but this appears to be a minority position" (p. 7). Likewise, public officials such as Senator Bill Frist and Dr. Charles Krauthammer have supported this position by calling for a ban on cloning-for-biomedical-research while at the same time accepting both the practice that gives rise to surplus embryos in U.S. fertility clinics, and the use of those surplus embryos for medical research or therapy (Fitzpatrick, 2003). These opponents object to cloning-for-biomedical research because, unlike the other practices, it involves creating embryos with the intention of destroying them for medical use (FitzPatrick, 2003). This approach, they believe, exploits embryos in a manner that the other techniques do not.