Human cloning

Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human. The term is
generally used to refer to artificial human cloning, which is the reproduction of human
cells and tissue. It does not refer to the natural conception and delivery
of identical twins. The possibility of human cloning has raised controversies. These
ethical concerns have prompted several nations to pass laws regarding human cloning
and its legality.
Human cloning is possibly one of the most heated and relevant ethical debates of our
time. Cloning is the process of taking genetic material from one organism, and creating
an identical copy of it by growing it artificially. This has been researched, studied, and
successfully done with the use of animals, many people believe the next step is
humans. The entire world would be changed if we began to clone humans, in some
ways for the better, but in others it would be much worse. When talking about human
lives, lines must be drawn, but where? In order to form a valid and educated opinion on
human cloning it is very important to understand the argument from both sides.

Types of Human Cloning

Recombinant DNA Technology/ DNA Cloning/ Gene Cloning
Gene cloning produces copies of genes or DNA segments. Gene cloning is done by inserting a gene,
which has been separated from the chromosomal DNA (the 'foreign DNA'), from an organism into the
genetic material of a vector which has also been separated from its chromosomal DNA. The vectors that
are usually used are bacteria, yeasts, viruses, or plasmids (self-replicating circular molecule of DNA).
When the gene is inserted into the vector in the laboratory, it is called a 'recombinant DNA'. When the
recombinant DNA is introduced into bacteria, the recombinant DNA will be replicated with the rest of the
plasmid. The recombinant DNA is put in certain laboratory conditions so that the gene is allowed to
multipy/copy/clone. Scientists or researchers studying a certain gene use bacteria plasmid to make
several copies of the gene to be examined.

Reproductive Cloning
Cloning animals is done through reproductive cloning. In reproductive cloning, a mature
somatic cell (ex: skin cell) is removed from an animal that wants to be copied. The DNA
of the donor animal's somatic cell is transferred into an egg cell that has its own DNA
but with the nucleus removed. Electric current is then used on the reconstructed egg to
stimulate cell division. The egg then develops into an early-stage embryo in the testtube. At the right stage, the clone embryo is implanted into the womb of an adult female
animal where it will develop until birth. The young animal that the female animal gives
birth to has the same genetic make up as the animal that donated the somatic cell and
is its clone.

Therapeutic Cloning/ Embryo Cloning

Therapeutic cloning basically has the same procedure as reproductive cloning but with different results
and goals. The goal of therapeutic cloning is to study human development and treat disease by
harvesting stem cells. Stem cells can be used to generate any type of specialized cell in the human body
making them very important. After the egg has divided in 5 days, the stem cells are taken from the egg.
Extracting the stem cells causes the destruction of the embryo. The destruction of the embryo from this
process raises many ethical concerns. Researchers hope that stem cells can someday be used to replace
damaged cells in parts of the body to treat injuries, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases

The Advantages of Human Cloning

1. Biological Children To Infertile Couples
Couples who are not able to naturally conceive a child would be able to clone
themselves in order to have a biological child. This would also open the possibility for
gay or lesbian couples to have a child that contains both parents DNA and genes.
2. Medical Advancement Boom
Once the process of cloning humans is perfected and becomes a common practice,
many other worlds of medical research would be expanded. This would result in
improved medicines and even possibly cures for terminal and deadly diseases.
3. Compensating A Loss
Parents who have lost a child could clone them and have their child back. This would
also go for someone who lost a spouse or other family member. This breaches into the
more controversial side of human cloning, but is an advantage none the less.
4. Organ Harvesting
Anyone who is in need of an organ transplant is placed on an excruciatingly long donor
list. Many of these people pass on from their illness before ever receiving a transplant.
With human cloning, organs could be cloned from the persons tissue and used as a
transplant. This would effectively eliminate the organ transplant waiting list.
5. The Elimination of Birth Defects
Any severe birth defect that is detected in the womb could be reversed using human
cloning. They would simply take the tissue of the child and create a clone. After they
have done this they could manipulate the embryos genes to remove the birth defect and
give them a better possibility of living a long and fulfilling life.
6. Prolonged Life
If a person is aging, they could have their young cell cloned in order to preserve their
youth. This would be done with the technology of human cloning, and could prolong the
average life span of a human being dramatically.
7. Bring Back Great Minds
Legendary, genius, and influential people could be brought back using human cloning.

This means that we could possibly create a dozen Einsteins or Abraham Lincolns to
come and help solve world problems.
The Disadvantages of Human Cloning
1. Currently Low Success Rates
With the current information that we have on the process of cloning, there seems to be
very limited success. Out of all of the animal testing on cloning that has been
conducting, only about 3 percent have been successful. This is a very scary statistic,
especially when youre talking about using human lives.
2. Development of New Illnesses
When you are creating entirely new forms of genes, you run the risk of also developing
new illnesses and diseases. The extent and effects of these could be devastating.
3. Devalues Human Lives
The belief that a person only has one life to live has been ingrained into people since
the beginning of humanity. Being able to simply clone some one who has passed
devalues the life that they have.
4. Divisions In Society
People who are cloned would likely be viewed as lesser citizens than those who where
conceived naturally. This would bring an entirely new breed of racism and prejudice to
the world that could cause devastating social divides. Clones would feel as though they
are not as much of a human as other people.
5. Moral and Ethical Problems
Religion and cultural problems have played the largest part in the argument against
human cloning. Many people believe that cloning a human being is playing God and
should not be done under any circumstance.

Characteristics of a Cloning Vector

Origin of replication (ORI)
This process marks autonomous replication in vector. ORI is a specific sequence of nucleotide in DNA
from where replication starts. When foreign DNA is linked to this sequence then along with vector
replication, foreign (desirable) DNA also starts replicating within host cell.

Selectable Marker
Besides ORI, a cloning vector should have selectable marker gene. This gene permits the selection of
host cells which bear recombinant DNA (called transformants) from those which do not bear rDNA
(non-transformants).

Restriction sites

It should have restriction sites, to allow cleavage of specific sequence by specific Restriction
Endonuclease. Restriction sites in E.coli cloning vector pBR322 include HindIII , EcoRI , BamHI , SalI,
PvuI, PstI, ClaI etc.

Economic Impact of Cloning

Experimentation of cloning should not continue because of the inefficiency of the
process. On the Human Genome Project Information website, it was said that,
Reproductive cloning is expensive and highly inefficient. More than 90% of cloning
attempts fail to produce viable offspring. More than 100 nuclear transfer procedures
could be required to produce one viable clone (2009). This shows that the process of
cloning takes too many attempts and with too high of a failure rate. Cloning takes up too
much of our time and money, which can be used on more important matters such as
schools, fighting in the middle east, and world hunger. In another article by the National
Center for Policy Analysis, it said that, Based on experiences with other reproductive
technologies, some experts have predicted the cost of a human clone might be around
$250,000 (2001). From this you can see that cloning is a very expensive process.
Combined with the inefficiency of the process, the economic impact would be huge if
many wealthy families started deciding to create clones of themselves. Even with the
negative economic impact of cloning, some say that developing nations need it. Cloning
can help produce animals that are able to survive harsh conditions, and therefor create
a healthy food source for villages in inhospitable places. This could solve problems with
these nations, but if they become too dependent on this food source it could be
disastrous. If an environmental change would occur in the area that these animals could
not defend against, they would all be killed off leaving the nation to starve. All in all,
cloning should not be continued because of the negative economic impacts included
with the process.