Cloning

How did cloning start?

Cloning started about 50 years ago. There have been many experiments and techniques used. It goes back to 1979 when scientists split mouse embryos in a test tube and then implanted the embryos into the wombs of 2 adult female mice. Not too long after that, they produced genetically identical cows, sheep, and chickens. They did this by moving the nucleus of a cell taken from an early embryo to an egg that has been emptied of its nucleus. 

What animals have been cloned?

You may remember when the first animal was cloned. Do you remember the lamb named Dolly? It only took 276 attempts. Since Dolly, researchers have cloned other mammals from somatic cells like sheep, calves, cats, deer, dogs, horses, mules, oxen, rabbits, and rats. Did you also know that a rhesus monkey has been cloned by embryo splitting?

How much would it cost to clone a human?

Zavos believes that the cost of cloning a human would be at least $50,000. Does that surprise anyone else? I was kind of thrown back by the low ball price but then remember, I said at least. 

While they go on to think that it would be possible to drop the price in the is the approximate cost of in vitro fertilization (Kirby 2001). However, there are estimates that range from  $200,000 to $2 million (Alexander 2001). Now that is a bit closer to the numbers I was thinking. 

I don’t believe in cloning and I am very offended by this article. 

That is understandable because there are many people that feel the same way, that it would be inhuman to clone another human. So what would be the point since most people believe cloning will never come to human beings? 

A goal for cloning has been to create cellular therapies. There are many treatments that use the patient’s own cloned cells. Drug companies are more interested in standardized therapies because we all know that that is where the money is. Egli says there is a much easier way to make personalized multi-purpose cells without destroying eggs or embryos. Now that is something that maybe everyone would be on board for (except the pharmaceutical industry).

Artificially creating cells from an adult.

A Japanese scientist named Shinya Yamanaka created a method of artificially creating cells from an adult. He says he was inspired by Dolly and came to realize that all cells have the same genetic material and could be reprogrammed into any other cell type. This light bulb led him to create a method for making induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)from mature cells, which can be grown into any type of tissue in the body. 

Cloning without Ethical Challenges

Michael Sandel of Harvard discusses the ethical implications here. There is a stem cell biologist named Kevin Eggan from Harvard university that believes Yamanaka’s iPSCs are very similar to ones made from embryos or ones made from cloning using donated eggs but without the ethical challenges. These cells are already used in research around the world. This research goes towards modeling diseases and screening drugs, and they are just starting to use iPSCs in therapies and macular degeneration. Eggan amplifies the ease of use explaining how he teaches sophomores at Harvard how to create them. Read more about cloning efficiency here.

Next step. Cure for cancer. 

We never clone another client’s marketing plan.

We never clone another client’s marketing plan because every business is unique, just like every human is unique. Know someone or have a business that needs a personalized marketing plan? Give us a call or contact us.