Cloning became to be, as a Finn Dorset ewe would provide the mammary cell for
the cloning process. Secondly the mammary cell containing all copies of every
gene that is needed to make the sheep. Although the only genes for proteins that
are required by mammary cells are active. Thirdly the cells grow and then they
are divided, by making carbon copies of themselves. But if the cells are starved
of there nutrients, they will soon enter a quiescent state. When it gets to this
point all of their genes are most likely already activated. In the fourth stage
there is an egg from a Scottish Blackface ewe that provides the egg. Then in the
fifth stage the egg or oocyte, is being kept alive in a laboratory dish. Sixth,
the nucleus is taken from the egg. Seventhly, the mammary cell and the egg are
fused with a bolt of electricity. The molecules that are in the egg then begin
to program the genes in the mammary cell to produce the lamb embryo. Then in the
eight stage the clusters of the embryonic cells are finished processing. In the
ninth stage the embryos are inserted into the surrogate mother. Finally the
tenth stage where the lamb is a result of a clone of the donor ewe. That lamb
was Dolly. Dolly was the first mammal cloned from a cell from an adult animal
This all relates to Chemistry because Chemistry involves finding cures, doing
experiments, and combining chemicals. The way scientists started doing cloning
was through Chemistry by experimenting with different chemicals to get the right
reaction.
One reason people have given for the invention of cloning is to make
spare parts in the future. Once an embryo has been twinned, one embryo can be
implanted and allowed to develop into a baby, while the other is frozen. If the
child later develops an illness such as leukemia, then the frozen twin could be
thawed and implanted into a surrogate mother, to be culled for spare parts after
a few months’ gestation. It is also believed that the technique could be adapted
to grow human organs such as hearts, kidneys, liver and pancreases in an
embryonic sac living in an artificial womb. This means you could clone your dead
father. This could be done so long as living cells have been kept in culture,
taken from before death, or have been frozen in an appropriate manner. This all
affects today’s world. Time-warp twins have already been born – non-identical
twins conceived in the laboratory on the same day, but implanted 18 months
apart.
Geep have already been born – half sheep and half goat – and camels and
lamas have also been combined to make camas. Cloning has always caught the
public imagination. We now have the technology to take a few cells from a modern
day Einstein, or a musical genius or a child prodigy and to create hundreds of
babies that have exactly the same genes. Of course, as identical twins, clones
will have individual differences, separate identities – separate souls. As far
as future plans, genes from humans are already working in fish, rabbits, mice,
pigs, sheep and cows. Some of these humanized pigs may be providers of heart
transplants in the future. It is predicted headless human clones will be used to
grow organs and tissues for transplant surgery in the next 5-10 years. It is
also predicted there will be great pressure to combine cloning technology with
the creation of partial foetuses, missing heads, arms or legs, as organ
factories for tomorrow’s people. For this reason President Clinton imposed a
five-year ban on human cloning research funded by federal government dollars.
Even without legislation, the Food and Drug Administration has said that it
would shut down anyone who tries human cloning. Federal regulations require that
scientists seek approval before attempting cloning, and the FDA has indicated
that it is highly unlikely they would grant such a request.
Bibliography
Newsweek “Can We Clone?” New York, published 1997 Internet Cloning.
URL http://people.delphi.com/patrickdixon/clonech.htm
