The following is an article posted from The National Vivisection Society (http://www.navs.org/). The web-site is set up and run by a retired anethesiologist and his wife, a veterinarian. It main focus is the prevention of cruelty to animals through better research, intervention, and understanding. Although I agree with some of the web sites points, I still think some of the issues are fairly one-sided. This is an excerpt about cloning that I thought was interesting.
Cloning Cats: A Primer on Cloning and Stem Cell Research
Lets start with some definitions. A stem cell is a cell usually found early in embryonic development that can turn into any cell in the body; heart, bone, blood and so forth. Cloning is the process of making an identical copy of a biological entity e.g., a cell, gene or frog. Therapeutic cloning is the process of making stem cells from the DNA of the human that the stem cells may eventually be placed in. This would solve the rejection problem now associated with stem cell therapy. This recently made news when stem cells were created at a biotechnology company from a human volunteer and the results published in an online journal. Human reproductive cloning is the process whereby a human being is cloned then implanted into a female for gestation and birthing. This has not happened and is unlikely to happen any time soon. There are huge obstacles, ethically and scientifically to reproducing a human via cloning.
Cloning, be it reproductive or therapeutic can be accomplished by what is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. This is when the nucleus of a cell is transferred into an oocyte that has had its nucleus removed. The oocyte then divides and makes stem cells and theoretically can make a person.
Animals have been cloned for years. Frogs started the process a couple of decades ago. Recently mammals were cloned and now people are starting to attempt to clone pets. It is interesting to note that despite the fact that several species have now been cloned, scientists still encounter new obstacles every time they set out to clone a species that has not yet been cloned. This underscores the fact that differences between species make it difficult to translate results from one species to another. This was also true of stem cells. Scientists grew stem cells from animals in culture long before they grew human stem cells. Just because scientists can do something to animal does not mean the process will work for humans.
Also interesting is the fact that it took the scientists about 89 tries to get the cat that has been in the news. Human stem cells can be made in cultures from other stem cells or obtained from fetuses, cord blood and even adult human tissues.
Cloning stem cells or cloning cells to make stem cells is very different from cloning a human. The fact that now a cat has been cloned is interesting but has little medical value for humans. It doesn’t even have that much value as a means of reproducing your favorite pet as it appears the cloned animals suffer health problems the original did not.
Cloning animals will likely continue but the process will have little affect on your future health.
Previous Article
Return to Animal Physiology Forum
If you would like to post a response to this article, use this form.
Animal Physiology Forum