Endangered Sheep Cloned

JoeyPea writes "Italian scientists have successfully cloned an endangered sheep, called the European mouflon, which is found in Sardinia, Corsica and Cyprus. A domestic sheep was used as a surrogate. This marks the first time an endangered mammal has been cloned and survived past birth."

Comments

Re:Rescuing species

[cmowire]

The main thing is that we can also collect cell samples over time to return some biodiveristy later on.

The advantage to cloning a dead nearly-extinct animal is that you return that dead animal's genes back into the pool. This can preserve the status quo. Over time, if we DNA-bank merely troubled species before they are even midly or severely in danger of extinction, we can give species a little more diversity to prevent them from dying out, once the situation gets critical. Captive breeding programs often have 100-200 specimens left to work with. If we also have 1000-2000 old DNA samples from when the animal was more frequent, that might mean the difference between extinction and survival.

The danger here is that we really do not fully understand the cloning process. If we carelessly apply these techniques to endangered species, we could hasten their decline. What if the clones cary some factor we don't quite understand, created by cloning, that makes them too weak to survive in the wild. Given the rules of gene flow, it can quickly cripple the species.

No T. Rex

[JJ]

Alas, DNA decays at a slow but perceptible rate. Although using several copies (as in a whole cell worth) allows small errors to be dealt with there are two problems with cloning T. rex. First, the DNA is millions of years old so the errors are huge. Second, whole cells are unlikely to be found. The Tasmanian wolf is a more likely candidate for back from extinction. Several pups are available in formaldhyde.

Re:No T. Rex

[ldopa1]

Unfortunately, not only does DNA decay at a slow put perceptible rate, it also decays natuarally while alive.

Every time a cell divides, the end caps for the DNA strand split too. While the caps themselves are very long (30% of the length of the DNA itself), there comes a time when the cap isn't long enough to divide again. When this happens, the DNA unravels and the cell dies. It's a natural anti-aging mechanism.

This is why "Dolly" (the cloned sheep) has a cellular life older than Dolly herself. If you look at Dolly's DNA, you'll see that all of the genes are the same as the adult's, right down to the end-caps. Those end-caps can only divide the same number of times as the parent DNA could divide (-1 for the cloning effort) because the cloned cells "inherited" the end-caps from the old cells. These end caps are called "Teleromes" and scientists have known about them for a long time.

Embryonic Stems cells have a store of hormones that allow them to grow new Teleromes. In this, they are different from normal, adult cells. In addition, Stem cells (both Adult and Embryonic) have the unique ability to become any type of cell in the whole organism. The type of cells they become seems to depend upon a complicated dance of hormones and environmental pressures. Without the hormones present, the stem cells just divide without direction (similar to cancer). If they have the right hormones, they might become nerve cells (to make a brain) or heart muscle cells.

These two reasons are why embryonic stem cell study is incredibly important if we ever want to be able to grow new nerve cells (for victims of MS, Parkinsons, Alzhiemers or CNS injury), heart cells (for your grandfather), or liver cells (for your frat brother who's on his 5th St. Pauli Girl).

Of course, the whole idea of cloning raises a thousand questions. If you clone yourself (a felony) and your clone kills your friend, who's guilty? Law currently states that if a death occurs because of or during the commision of a felony, the person who committed the felony is guilty of murder. That means your clone goes free! Granted, you get the chair or the needle, but still the clone goes free! He (or she) cannot be prosecuted for anything that he or she does. What a way to create a terrorist nation! Think about it:

L-DOPA creates a clone of himself. He then promptly kills L-DOPA(1). L-DOPA claims he is a clone (there's no way to tell) and is thereby blameless (and L-DOPA(1) is dead). He then goes on to clone 50,000 new L-DOPA(2)'s, which then go on a hacking spree the world has never seen. Nobody can prosecute him or any of his clones. The "blame" lies with L-DOPA(1), and because of double jeopardy laws, none of the other L-DOPA's can be prosecuted either...

Not to mention the tax implications... :)

Re:Still the same thoughts from Dolly

[Shook]

So doctors say that this can be used in research fo cures for diseases....Well, most of these diseases exist because they are induced by current technologies (skin, lung, etc.). If we didn't come up with such harmful things in the first place, then we wouldn't have to invent more things (who knows what harm will come of them) to cure these diseases.

I don't follow you. While many of our diseases are caused by self-inflicted behavior (smoking, exposure to chemicals, bad diet), most other diseases are not.

The goal of Ian Wilmut, the scientist who cloned Dolly, was to produce transgenic animals that would secrete drugs in their milk. He did that, with another clone, named Polly. This sheep secreted human factor IX, which is used to treat hemophilia B. This disease is inherited, and is not caused by technology.

Wonder cures

[driehuis]

This only goes to show how complex the matter is... Nature has shown to be very resiliant to mans feeling of having conquered disease X. As a kid, when I had a cough, the doctor prescribed antibiotics. The result of this collective overreaction has, over the years, been that (a) a number of dangerous mutations of low-risk bacteria have sprung up (hospital syndrome), and (b) that if I ever get an infection with a life threatening hostile organism, the doctors will have a hard time figuring out an antibiotic that will work.

A very good example of what I think is wrong with the mechanical (i.e., the human body is just a machine) approach is the E.coli issue. A number of people have died from eating hamburgers that weren't fully cooked, and happened to be infected with a dangerous E.coli strain. Everyone points at E.coli as the culprit, but at least some of the deaths can be attributed to the use of Imodium, a drug that stops diarrhea by basically shutting down the bowels, stopping the annoying diarrhea, but allowing E.coli to grow unchecked in the bowels. Just allowing the body to be violently ill but get rid of the disease seems to have disappeared off the list of treatment methods.

I'm not a medical scientist, and in fact I know diddly squat about medicine, but I think there is genuine cause for alarm when I hear scientists claim that cures are around the corner. The most effectives cures I've seen so far are clean drinking water and a certain level of hygiene.

Oh, and has it ever occurred to anyone that happy people seem to be healthier too?