Cloning Research Paper

Research Paper: Cloning

Cloning was introduced in 1997 by a group of scientists at the Roslin Institute in

Scotland. (cloning fact sheet) Their successful clone of the sheep "Dolly" put them and

the topic of cloning onto the national scene. Unfortunately a great deal of people believed

that cloning was morally wrong, and it shouldn't be performed under any circumstances.

Ever since 1997 cloning has been under a great deal of scrutiny, but scientists continue to

advance themselves in the field despite people's objections. (cloning fact sheet)

The form of cloning that scientists performed in Scotland to duplicate "Dolly"

the sheep is known as Reproductive Cloning, which is one of three types of cloning.

Reproductive cloning is the most widely known form of cloning, but what is little known

is that cloning is used for purposes other than genetic duplication.

Recombinant DNA Technology is a form of cloning used to generate

duplications of a material so scientists can further their study on that particular material.

Recombinant DNA Technology has been used since the 1970's and is now a common

practice in molecular biology labs. The actual process used to carry out "DNA Cloning"

is similar to the process a virus follows to duplicate itself and infect. (cloning fact sheet)

Only the "DNA Cloning" process is monitored very closely and is an extremely

complicated and intricate procedure.

Therapeutic Cloning is the final type of cloning that is currently in use, and is

the most controversial of the three. More formerly known as "stem-cell research" the

process that is involved in harvesting these "stem cells" is where controversy arises. Stem

cells are extracted from the egg after it has divided for 5 days. The egg at this stage of

development is called a blastocyst. The extraction process that takes place destroys the

embryo." (cloning fact sheet) The ultimate goal of Therapeutic Cloning is to one day use

those harvested stem cells to serve as replacement cells to treat heart disease, Alzheimer's,

cancer, and other diseases. As of now Therapeutic Cloning is still in its very early stages

of development. (What is) The first successful experiment conducted was in November

of 2001 at the Advanced Cell Technologies lab in Massachusetts. The goal of this

experiment was to take the egg from a woman's embryo and make that egg the nucleus of

the cell they wanted to duplicate, if the experiment was a success the cells would begin to

divide and duplicate themselves. There were a total of eight eggs extracted from embryos

and of the eight eggs only three began to successfully divide and duplicate themselves.

Cloning of course is not as easily carried out as it may seem. It is an extremely

expensive and inconsistent procedure. Ninety percent of the time the cloning process

doesn't even produce living offspring. (cloning fact sheet) When a clone is lucky enough

to survive birth it generally lives a short and unhealthy life. Scientists have stated that

during the cloning process the subject's immune system is compromised, which can

cause a premature death in the clone. Even when a clone seems to be living a relatively

healthy life, it will die without any sort of prior indications. This is why several people

are against cloning because there