Cloning
During my interview with my grandmother I asked her what she thought of
cloning.
she responded by saying that it was not right and should be stopped.
on the
other hand i have a different opinion. I think that cloning should be
continued
and furhter researched for we might be able to have different
organs and
substances produced in these clones. Below is the step that were
taken to clone
the adult sheep named Dolly. Part 1: An Improbable Goal
Scientists hoped that
cloning healthy, mature sheep, rather than just
creating lambs from embryonic
cells, could produce a highly specialized sheep
with large quantities of
proteins in its milk. The proteins are believed to
help treat diseases such as
emphysema, hemophylia and cystic fibrosis. Part
2: The Perfect Timing For years,
scientists could not synchronize the growth
of the egg and the cell. If one was
off- synch, abnormal chromosomes would
soon transform in the nucleus and thereby
kill off the embryo. Dr. Wilmut
achieved near perfection in the timing by
putting the cells into hybernation;
of the 277 eggs they began with, 247 lived
through the process. Timing the
growth in other species, however, has proved to
scientists that cloning
mature animals is extremely difficult; in the case of
mice, they've concluded
it can't be accomplished. Part 3: Jump-start from a Jolt
Though it has
become a standard procedure in cloning, scientists are not sure
why an
electric pulse sent to the two cells causes them to meld together
and
activates development in the egg. They are learning, however, the shock
doesn't
fully mimic the activation process of a sperm, which could explain
why just 29
of the remaining 247 cells live longer than six days. Part 4:
Surrogate
Motherhood Despite the fact that the newly formed embryo is
transplanted into
the uterus of another ewe, scientists believe Dolly is a
nearly exact
carbon-copy of her genetic originating mother. In theory, that
means an almost
exact look-alike of John F. Kennedy Jr. could be produced by
taking cells from
his skin, melding their nuclei with any woman's egg that
has had its nucleus
removed and then planting the embryo in a surrogate
mother. Part 5: A 6-Year-Old
in 7 Months? Scientists are eagerly watching
Dolly to see if she exhibits the
characteristics of her mother, a 6-year-old
sheep, or those of her own age, just
7 months. As animals and humans age,
changes occur in their DNA - such as
decreasing fertility and increasing
susceptibility to cancer and other diseases.
If she prematurely ages,
clones of mature animals would be useless to the
agriculture industry.