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First Cloned Human Embryo
Human cloning, or at least the production of human embryos, is no longer hypothetical; a company called Advanced Cell Technology claims to have successfully done just that. DivideX0 writes: "The Scientific American has this article. Note the research was conducted in the U.S. although there are bills pending in Washington that will ban this research." There's also a story at MSNBC. Update: 11/25 16:07 GMT by T : Here's ACT's press release as well.
Can you tell me any biological difference between clones and twins? (besides the fact that they were done at the same time)
Identical twins are the same person at birth who have different events in life that alter their personalities and responses to shape a new individual.
This doesn't frighten me at all. No 'soul' bullshit, because if there are souls, then it's a new one in the clone, not the same one. This has a lot of potential for good, and I don't know of much that doesn't have it for bad too. So let's all relax and think before we cry 'OH DEAR GOD SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN'.
There won't be any trouble claiming "prior art" though, will there?
Unfortunately it looks like the debate in the US senate is going to be very one sided, and the senate will vote like the house did and pass a bill banning cloning research in broad strokes...including the research that was just announced, which is not meant to clone entire human beings, but an effort to conduct stem cell research to produce transplantable organs by taking dna from a patient and cloning compatible organ cells, to reduce the risk of rejection.
The long term plan for this company is to be able to use a synthetic process and skip the reproductive cells altogether, but to get there there needs to be intense research on how the stem cell process works, so that a organ specific process can be developed, which doesn't run the ethical risk of creating a whole person if some cells were quickly stolen from the lab and placed in a womb.
I find it somewhat ironic that so much research goes on with materials that have the potential to kill large amounts of human life...but research with the potential to create human life is so strongly opposed.
-jef
Why should research be banned that could allow you to "grow" a new heart (or liver or whatever) if yours breaks somewhere down the line? If this research ONLY allowed people to get heart transplants without waiting on infinitely long waiting lists for someone to die, imagine the benefit to medicine.
If the U.S. bans this research, it will simply move to other countries. Imagine having to live in China or Russia for a while to get your heart transplant because saving your life this way in the U.S. is illegal.
In my opinion, the U.S. should ban cloning an entire human for whatever purpose, as this could be used for some very evil things. But banning research is stupid.
If you can get your representative to draw a distinction between therapeutic cloning (make young healthy cells to repair damage in the host) and reproductive (make a baby), hats off to ya. Want to go for the jackpot? Explain it to the satisfaction of the religious right. I agree with your position, but adopting it would lose a congressman votes among the enormous "no attention for an argument longer than a bumper sticker" constituency.
As for the posts which talk about the weaker DNA and shortened life of clones, RTFA! There's a difference between cloned embyonic cells and cloned adult cells. But try explaining that to Slashdot. Much cleverer to say "Three thumbs up for cloning!" or the like and move on to other matters.
It's a known fact that cloned DNA is often (but not always) weaker and ages faster. This may not be the case with human DNA however.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
You shouldn't mix up science fiction with reality. There's nothing scary happening here. By definition, cloning does not create something new but merely duplicates something existing. The debate when something becomes 'human life' is a pure relegious debate. From a scientific point of view however, there were never more than just the cells. You have one cluster of cells, you split it and you have two clusters of cells. If it happens under natural circumstances you call the end result a twin. If you help nature a little, some people suddenly think of it as Frankenstein's monster.
Apart from all the technical details, the cloning process is somthing like: take an egg, replace DNA with DNA of choice, grow the embryo, split the embryo, proceed using mother nature's own processes. From a religious point of view this is not even supposed to be possible but the end result is kind of hard to deny (challenging the assumptions that underly some religions). However, most relegions rely on ignorance anyway so I doubt that this development will affect them in anyway.
In any case, when my liver/kidney/heart/whatever fails I would be very pleased if a backup part, constructed from my own cells, would be available rather than having to rely on third party provided parts. Everyday lots of people die because there are no donor organs available. And even if there is a donor organ it is uncertain whether the transplantation will succeed. This technology could be a great contribution to a solution to this problem.
Jilles
According to the Scientific American article (which you should read now), the company, Advanced Cell Technology, is not pursuing research on reproductive cloning. What they are pursuing is research on therapeutic cloning. Without going into details (go read the article), what this will eventually allow researchers to do is grow organs, tissues, etc. from the intended receipient's own stem cells. The stem cells are created using cloning. If this becomes reality, the benefits will be huge. It's called "regenerative medicine" (quoting their CEO) for a reason.
Reproductive cloning is more difficult. While the first stage is the same - insert new DNA into egg, prompt the start of division - reproductive cloning has many more steps required to create a baby. First of all, as far as I know, babies can't be grown in vitro, so you have to implant the cloned egg into a mother. There is massive potential for danger here, not only to the growing embryo but also to the mother. Furthermore, there are issues that have yet to be resolved, such as the possibility that cloned DNA is already "aged," leading to shorter life for the cloned person or animal. Neither of these absolutely critical issues is even touched by this research. Reproductive cloning is a long, long way off.
On the other hand, it appears therapeutic cloning is making much progress. I for one am excited by the possibilites, and I think that any legislative reaction to this research is purely reactive and would ignore the facts. I see no ethical problems with this research whatsoever, and neither did the ethical board overseeing this research.
-SymphonicMan
You know, we have been artificially generating human beings since human life began on this planet. And the "potential for harm" is tremendous. Just think of this, every criminal that ever lived was created by an action of two other human beings, that is, by definition, an "artificial" creation.
Interestingly, not a single one of those criminals has ever been produced in a lab. So, the ethical problem is not "where and how will we create new human beings", the TRUE ethical question we must face is "how do we raise the human beings we create".
The original publication by the authors describing their methods and partially also their motivation is available for free. You can get it here.
2. genetic imprinting. Fertilized zygotes have DNA contributions from two parents, whilst cloned embryos only from one parent. DNA is often covalently modified (e.g., methylation) in a process called imprinting, where the modified allele is silenced. Modifying these silenced alleles often has deleterious consequences.
3. Telomere length. Chromosomal ends are maintained by special DNA structures called telomeres. The lengths of telomeres are often different between different cell types, and usually reflects the state of differentiation of the cells. Telomeres are known to affect life span and this is probably one of the main reasons why cloned animals have poor life spans.
There are just some factors that I can think of off-hand, I'm sure there are many others. Just because organisms have identical DNA sequences do not mean that they will develop identically, even if you do not take environmental effects into consideration.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for cloning and stem cell research, but it is prudent to think through ethical concerns before plunging ahead.
NO CARRIER
You obviously didn't read the article. They aren't cloning humans.
What they are doing is human cell cloning, which is hardly unethical. This is on the same ethical level as commonplace tissue transplants. They are not making embryos, but simply cells that can then be used to patch up damaged tissue in aging or diseased adults.
I think this sounds like a great idea - and with further research will beat the pants off the barely successful Frankenstein-like system of transplanting tissue between humans that we use now. The person instead gets their own copied cells.
Please take the time to really think about what this mean before jumping to conclusions.