History of Cloning
Although the word itself has only been around for only four decades, the idea of creating an organism identical to another has been around for centuries. Even nature has utilized this process. The actual process of artificially cloning has been around since before 1900s, even though it is heard of more often in the modern world. Cloning began in 1894 with the first clone of an organism. Hans Dreisch was able to clone a sea urchin, and his research led to Hans Spemann’s multiple attempts and successes of cloning throughout his science years. As technology advanced, Robert Briggs and Thomas King used Spemann’s results to create the process of nuclear transfer used in modern cloning techniques. After many debates over fraud and ethics, the Roslin Institute becomes famous for its scientists who created some of the most famous clones, including Megan and Morag, Dolly, and other sheep. The world of cloning expands with the discovery of new technologies, and the ethics debate increases as the possibility of human cloning is made more known through many known frauds and real experiments.
The concept of “cloning” is creating an organism with the same DNA as another. This means that the natural world has been creating clones for thousands of years. Such examples are identical twins and self-pollinated plants. However, artificially creating clones intentionally by nuclear transfer is, compared to the beginning of natural cloning, a recent human experiment. Although cloning has been extremely successful in this past decade, important concepts and large steps have been taken over the past century.
The first successful cloning attempt was performed by Hans Dreisch in 1894, who cloned a sea urchin by isolating blastomer...
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The process of cloning may look like twenty-first century science but the history of cloning goes back all the way to 1885. Hans Adolf Edward Dreisch was the first person to ever demonstrate the process of artificial embryo twinning. By simply shaking a two celled sea urchin embryo he made a landmark discovery. When shaken the two celled embryos split apart creating two identical celled embryos. After the cells separated they grew into two sea urchins. This discovery proved two things, that embryos have their own genetic instructions, and have the ability to grow into a complete organism.
Cloning has been in nature for thousands of years, a clone is a living thing made from another consisting of the same DNA. For example identical twins are clones because they have the same DNA but the differ because the twins begin after conception when a zygote, a totipotent stem cell, divides into two, some plants self-pollinate and produce a seed, which in turn, makes plants with the same genetic code (Hyde). According to the Human Genome Project there are three types of cloning, DNA, therapeutic and reproductive; DNA cloning involves transferring DNA from a donor to another organism, therapeutic cloning, known as embryo cloning, involves harvesting stem cells from human embryos to grow new organs for transplant, and last is reproductive cloning which creates a copy of the host (Conger). One of the earliest cloned animals was a sea urchin by Hans Dreisch in the late 1800’s. Unlike Victor Frankenstein, Dreisch’s goal was to prove that genetic material is not lost in cell division, not to create another being, (History of Cloning) stated by Frankenstein “that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.” There are many ways an animal...
The Roslin Institute, is known for being one of the world's primary research centers on farm and other animals. In 1996, Professor Wilmut, along with his assistant, Keith Campbell, made history by creating the first organism to be duplicated (cloned) from adult cells. Their creation infamously became known as Dolly, the first cloned adult sheep.
Charles Q. Choi. “Cloning of a Human” Scientific American. Jun 2010. Vol. 302 Issue 6. p36-38. web. 4 Apr. 2011
Human and animal cloning traces back to a long time in history. There has been many changes and improvements throughout the times. For example, cloning had started with smaller, easier subjects to work with. Researchers have found that "cloning of plants (such as growing a plant from a cutting) has been a common practice of mankind for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years" ("History of Cloning"). In earlier times, many scientists used plants to practice on and perfect before moving on. After they had perfected this, than they would move on to more complicated subjects. In addition, animals became the next experiments for the science of cloning. " Even cloning of small animals has a long history dated back to the 1960s; human cloning had not been thought possible until the successful cloning of the first mammal, Dolly the Sheep, in 1997" ("History of Cloning"). Dolly the Sheep helped scientists be convinced that ...
There are two ways to make an exact genetic copy which are artificial embryo twinning, and somatic cell nuclear transfer. Artificial embryo ...
In earlier times the subject of cloning human beings has been no more than just a fantastic idea to play around with in science-fiction books and movies. As time progresses though, more and more fantasies become realities. Such is the case with cloning. What has only been dreamt up before by artists on pen and paper can now be performed by scientists in laboratories. With the ability to clone humans now possible the question of whether such an act should even be carried out is raised. How far should cloning be allowed to go if it should even be allowed at all? The answer is that cloning should be allowed, but only in moderation.
Imagine living in a society where the ideology of human cloning is accepted. Envision being able to practice the procedure of taking a genetically identical copy of a biological entity and copying it to create an exact replica of the same genetic makeup. Today, in the field of genetics and developmental biology, the American Medical Association (AMA) has defined cloning as “the production of genetically identical organisms via somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT)”. The idea of cloning surfaced in 1997 when Dr. Ian Wilmut, a British scientist, successfully cloned a sheep named Dolly. This turned the scientific world upside-down and was a prodigious success in the advancement of biotechnology. The success of the experiment was the starting point to animal cloning and further progression of cloning in general. In bioethics, the dissimilar notion of human cloning has been a very controversial yet sensitive issue which essentially questions the morals and principles of cloning as well as the merits of Science and Biology. Due to the breakthroughs in science, researchers have made outstanding advancements in biological science; however, the ideology of cloning is still a strong provocative issue. It not only provokes worry on the ethical issues and concerns of the use of biotechnology, but it also promotes the question is contemporary artificial cloning justifiable?
In conclusion, the thesis of this paper is supported by three contentions. First, if successful, cloning can have a lot of positive technological advancements that would help humanity. Second, Dolly, the first cloned mammal, inspired many scientists to speculate a new era in cloning technology and raise hopes for future probability in which human cloning was possible. Finally, at the center of the controversy, surges the closest thing to a clone that lives a healthy and regular life, identical twins. The promise of cloning at any level can revolutionize the world, and change it for the better, but are we are not ready for human trials. The failure rate is overwhelming; we should master cloning animals with close to 100% success rate before starting human cloning trials.
The only cloning leading up to the 1930’s was done by Hans Spemann, Walter Heape, and Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch. In 1885 Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch separated two sea urchin cells to create two separate sea urchins. In 1890 Walter Heape used in vitro fertilization,”a medical procedure whereby an egg is fertilized by sperm in a test tube or elsewhere outside the body”(Oxford), to create a rabbit. In 1902 Hans Spemann split
Cloning has been attempted for over a century by many different biologists. The first known cloned animal was created in 1885 by a man named Hans Dreisch. He took the two celled embryo of a sea urchin and cut it into two separate cells. Both cells began reproducing and, after developing, created two identical clones (“Cloning - a short
Cloning has come very far through science within the last few decades. Although it is a natural part of the world, scientists have taken a simple idea and expanded it further then what was thought possible. Though cloning faces many challenges, scientists such as Dr. Richard Seed continue their research in perfecting cloning in order to benefit the world. Cloning, a controversial topic thought to do harm, but simply misunderstood. The fact is, cloning could improve life more than what can be comprehended or as Dr. Richard Seed said, cloning will be taking “humanity one step closer to God.”
2) Annas, George J. “Why We Should Ban Human Cloning,” The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 339, no. 2 (July 9, 1998), pp. 118-125.
In recent years, the development of cloning technology in non-human species has led to new ways of producing medicine and improving our understanding of development and genetics. But what exactly is human reproductive cloning and how has this technology been developed? The term “cloning” refers more specifically to a process known as somatic cell nuclear transfer. In this process, the DNA from the cell of ...
Recent discoveries involving cloning have sparked ideas of cloning an entire human body (ProQuest Staff). Cloning is “the production of an organism with genetic material identical to that of another organism” (Seidel). Therapeutic cloning is used to repair the body when something isn’t working right, and it involves the production of new cells from a somatic cell (Aldridge). Reproductive cloning involves letting a created embryo develop without interference (Aldridge). Stem cells, if isolated, will continue to divide infinitely (Belval 6). Thoughts of cloning date back to the beginning of the twentieth century (ProQuest Staff). In 1938, a man decided that something more complex than a salamander should be cloned (ProQuest Staff). A sheep named Dolly was cloned from an udder cell in 1997, and this proved that human cloning may be possible (Aldridge). In 1998, two separate organizations decl...