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The Trouble With Tribbles: Cloning Pitfalls
SloppyElvis writes: "Millie, The University of Tennessee's cloned cow, has been found dead in her pasture. Spokespersons for the University report the cause of death is unknown.CNN.com has the story.
Studied individuals would attribute this and the sundry other cloned-animal deaths to DNA telomere degradation. During mitosis (cell-division), the far ends of the chromosomes are known to degrade and shorten. By the time an animal reaches adulthood, this degradation is significant, and it is transferred to the cloned offspring. Many speculate that when these frayed ends reach a terminal length, your time is up, so to speak.
On March 9, 2001, MSNBC reported, "Hundreds of couples have volunteered for an experiment to create cloned children despite strong religious and scientific opposition". I wonder how these people would feel when their clones simply expired? Does anybody remember Blade Runner?"
Researchers were checking to see if the animal was the victim of a lightening strike or ingested a toxin, including poisonous weeds. They are also looking into the appearance of several crop circles in surrounding fields on the same night. No other animals at the station appeared to be affected.
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Liberty uber alles.
"The problem is that there are a number of good counter examples."
Just wanted to add another note to an excellent comment. Cloning does not necessarily result in shortened telomeres. I don't have a reference handy, but other researchers have reported that by modifications in the cloning procedure can shorten or lengthen the telomeres in the animal produced, even making them significantly longer than normal -- although what impact this has on life expectancy is stll uncertain.
I suppose that what this means is that if humans are going to be cloned, we are going to need to get back to the biological sense of maturity, meaning that (warning: this is a bit crude) as soon as you can get it up, it's time for cloning. Cloning 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds, etc. in order to prevent the neural degradation.
On the other hand, what is the only group who are both young and interested in science?
You guessed it. Do we really want to create a race of persons who will grow up to be engineers? <shudder> <twitch>
Zaphod B
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
Exactly. So if you've got, say, 40 years left, being, say, 40 when the clone was made, the clone would expire in ~40 years. In theory, you'd die at pretty much the same time. You'd be (base age) + (TTL) and the clone would be (TTL), but you'd both die (TTL) years after the cloning occured.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
So, for cloning to be useful for us humans, given the likely near-term progress in both the cloning arena and the anti-aging arena, the most practical strategy for those interested in possibly cloning themselves or their loved ones or their loved ones' body parts in the future, would be to bank their genetic material NOW before the telomeres degrade any further.
New business plan for Alcor?
The problem is that there are a number of good counter examples. For instance mice have telomeres some 10 times the length of humans. Do they live longer therefore than humans. Well no. Also it seems that telomerase (the enzyme which lengthens the telomeres) is active in mouse cells. In other words there telomeres do not get any shorter.
Telomere shortening is an attractive proposition of course for causing many things, but at the moment the evidence is lacking. It might be relavant. Alternatively it might have nothing to do with anything much!
Phil