Cloning II

Should Humans be Cloned?

Physicians from the American Medical Association and scientists with the American Association for the Advancement of Science have issued formal public statements advising against human reproductive cloning. Currently, the U.S. Congress is considering the passage of legislation that could ban human cloning.

Due to the inefficiency of animal cloning (only about 1 or 2 viable offspring for every 100 experiments) and the lack of understanding about reproductive cloning, many scientists and physicians strongly believe that it would be unethical to attempt to clone humans. Several cloned animals have died prematurely from infections and other complications. The same problems would be expected in human cloning. In addition, scientists do not know how cloning could impact mental development. While factors such as intellect and mood may not be as important for a cow or a mouse, they are crucial for the development of healthy humans. With so many unknowns concerning reproductive cloning, the attempt to clone humans at this time is considered potentially dangerous and ethically irresponsible.

With the many unethical issues, why are we still so concerned over cloning? It must have its advantages and uses!

Technology related to cloning can be used to improve taste and nutritional value or provide resistance to particular types of disease can be used to genetically engineer food crops. Animals can be genetically altered to serve as models for studying human diseases.

Reproductive cloning also could be used to repopulate endangered animals or animals that are difficult to breed.Cloning extinct animals presents a much greater challenge to scientists because the egg and the surrogate needed to create the cloned embryo would be of a species different from the clone.

Therapeutic cloning technology may some day be used in humans to produce whole organs from single cells or to produce healthy cells that can replace damaged cells in degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. Much work still need to be done before therapeutic cloning can become a realistic option for the treatment of disorders.

Celebrity Sheep Has Died at Age 6

Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned from adult DNA, was put down by lethal injection Feb. 14, 2003. Prior to her death, Dolly had been suffering from lung cancer and crippling arthritis. Although most Finn Dorset sheep live to be 11 to 12 years of age, postmortem examination of Dolly seemed to indicate that, other than her cancer and arthritis, she appeared to be quite normal. The unnamed sheep from which Dolly was cloned had died several years prior to her creation. Dolly was a mother to six lambs, bred the old-fashioned way.

Cloning

Have you ever wondered how another exact copy of living creature could be created? Most of us would have heard ‘Dolly’ the sheep before. Dolly looks just like her mum.

To clone a gene, we first require a DNA fragment containing the gene of interest to be isolated from chromosomal DNA using restriction enzymes and then write it with a plasmid that has been cut with the same restriction enzymes.

Many of you might think that ‘Dolly’ the sheep was the first animal to be cloned. Hehe.. But you are wrong. The first animal that was cloned was a tadpole. Before Dolly was created, the first mammal cloned from the cell of a grown-up animal, the clones were created from embryonic cells.

Since Dolly, scientists have cloned both large and small animals like the sheep, pigs, cats, rabbits, goats, cows and even gaur.

Do you think whatever you like to clone would be successful?
Cloning of monkeys, chickens, horses and dogs have not been successful.

Some species are more resistant to ell nuclear transfer than others. Improvements in cloning technologies are needed so that many species can be cloned successfully but of course this concerns ethical and moral issues too, especially in the case of human beings.

Picture showing the Process of Cloning Dolly

Something for all the night owls. =)

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Roses are BLUE

Did you receive a blue rose for Valentines' or hoping for your prince charming to give you a big bouquet of blue roses?

Roses are red, that is what we all know. Roses also come naturally in colours such as white, yellow and pink. Now we have man-made roses which are champagne (yellow orange) and blue! Blue roses were dyed in the past. However recently, they can be grown naturally using genetic engineering!

Blue is a particularly difficult colour to achieve because of the complex genetic and environmental cues. The pigment that makes some other flowers (eg. carnation) blue is called delphinidin, but roses lack the genes to produce it.

The blue rose that was successfully created was made by introducing blue genes extracted from pansies (picture on left). Differing from previous efforts to produce blue roses through existing hybridization technology, the petals of the roses were altered so that they were composed almost entirely of delphinidin, making it possible to breed varieties more susceptible to hybridization. While the rose is referred to as "blue," its actual color is closer to blueish-purple. The RNAi technology is used to remove the gene encoding the enzyme dihydroflavonol reductase (DFR) in roses. Simply saying, the gene functions of the plant was manipulated.

*Delphinidin is a primary plant pigment. Delphinidin gives blue hues to flowers like violas and delphiniums. It also gives the blue-red color of the grape and can be found in cranberries.*

So we can all look forward to more blue roses in the florists soon!!