2-3a Reading - Cloning and Stem Cells

Cloning and Stem Cells

The word “clone” has entered into popular culture through the news and even blockbuster movies. Cloning essentially involves the copying of the key genetic information of one organism into an empty egg, which then grows in a host body and eventually develops into an exact replica of the donor of that genetic information. There are many benefits that can result from the process of cloning where many lives could potentially be saved; however, there is also the other side of debate wherein some fear the technology could be abused or even simply be unethical.

Cloning can have many more uses in life-saving medical research and application, known as therapeutic cloning, than just making copies of a creature, which is termed reproductive cloning. Perhaps the most well-known instance of reproductive cloning is that of Dolly the sheep, who shot to fame in 1997. Although previously there had been some success cloning amphibians like frogs and small mammals like mice, the creation of Dolly was the first time that a large mammal had been fully cloned (AnimalResearch.info, n.d.). It was thought that this would open a new era in scientific achievement and medical possibilities. One of these possibilities is using donor cells to create embryos, or early cells that will eventually form a complete living being, from which stem cells can then be harvested. Stem cells are specialized cells that have the unique ability to evolve into any other type of cells such as liver cells or brain cells. The goal of doing this therapeutic cloning would be to use these types of cells to fully re-grow organs and other tissue with the hope of using these organs for transplants in patients that may otherwise die. The most significant benefit of this technique is that if the cloning procedure is implemented using cells donated from the patients themselves, the resulting “grown” organ will be genetically identical to that of the patients, and there will be very little chance of their bodies rejecting the new organ after surgery (Kfoury, 2007). The need for extremely long waits for potential donors would also be at an end.

Despite the benefits that cloning and the harvesting of stem cells could have for ailing patients in desperate need of new organs, there have been questions raised about the potential for abuse of such powerful medical technology. Of particular importance is whether or not some scientists would ever attempt to clone a complete human being. It is not so much a matter of whether or not such a thing could be done as much as it is whether or not anyone should ever attempt it.  Some countries, such as the United States, have tried to ban cloning in any form, even for therapeutic cloning used for the production of organs for transplant and saving lives. The argument is that the mere existence of such technology may open the door to human cloning, which would perhaps have disastrous consequences. Still, this is happening at the same as medical breakthroughs and possibilities due to cloning technology are being announced every month in public news media (Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog, 2013).  In addition to fearing the abuse of cloning technology, some people also resist stem cell harvesting because of the use of human embryos as the source of stem cells as these cells would have the potential to grow into complete organisms. In this way, using embryonic cells for research could be seen as the killing of a potential organism before it even begins to grow. Although there has been a great deal of research done into adult stem cells, those taken from bone marrow and blood, which seems to avoid controversy, these cells just do not reproduce themselves or have the same versatility as embryonic stem cells (Murnaghan, 2014). Thus, research using embryonic cells continues along with the resistance to it.

The debate over whether or not cloning technology and the harvesting of stem cells should be continued has persisted, and each country has ongoing political discussions regarding its legal validity. Before any claims in the media regarding the effectiveness or validity of such techniques are presented, far more discussion and theoretical research seem to be needed.

References

AnimalResearch.info. (n.d.). Cloning Dolly the sheep. Retrieved from Decoded Science. Retrieved from http://www.animalresearch.info/en/medical-advances

Kfoury, C. (2007). Therapeutic cloning: promises and issues. McGill Journal of Medicine, 10(2), pp. 112-120. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323472/pdf/mjm1002p112.pdf

Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog. (2013, May 13). Deja you: human cloning generally legal in the US. Retrieved from http://www.ipscell.com/2013/05/human-cloning-generally-legal-in-the-us/

Murnaghan, I. (2014, May 4). Adult vs. Embryonic stem cells. ExploreStemCells. Retrieved from http://www.explorestemcells.co.uk/adultvsembryonicstemcells.html