2008 Woodie Awards
Cloning: A battle between religion and science
Many countries ban the cloning of human cells despite the possible benefits
Amir Assadi-Rad
Issue date: 12/10/04 Section: News
- Page 1 of 5 next >
How is animal cloning conducted?
Clone in Greek (klon) means twig, and refers to a twig that could give rise to an identical tree. Public perception of human cloning envisions multiple copies of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Saddam Hussein inhabiting earth.
For cloning, two main ingredients are needed: an egg and a somatic cell whose nucleus is going to be placed in the egg.
The first step is to remove the nucleus from the egg, a process called enucleation (or genetic material can be inactivated by radiation). The nucleus of the desired animal will be placed into the enucleated egg. In some cases, they combine the whole cell into the enucleated egg. This process is sometimes called nuclear transplantation, or somatic cell nuclear transfer. Chemicals or electricity then stimulate the new clone. The embryo would grow in a laboratory dish for a few days and is then transferred to a surrogate mother, who would go under normal gestation period to birth.
Possibly the first cloned human embryo was created in South Korea. Doctor Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University collected 242 eggs from 16 volunteers. He replaced the DNA from the egg, and then fused the egg with another cell from the same woman.
About 25 percent of the eggs reached the blastocyst stage (about 100 cells). The Korean team used a new method. They created a tiny hole in the egg's membrane and squeezed the nucleus out of it.
They then replaced the DNA material from the same woman before researchers took the DNA from another woman. After this, they waited a couple of hours to grow the egg. In previous experiments, others did it right away. Koreans are claiming that they made 30 human clones.
Cloning a human being into full term might be happening right now, somewhere. Italian fertility specialist Severino Antinori, said in the United Arab Emirates, one woman among the thousands of infertile couples in the program is eight weeks pregnant with a cloned baby.
Clone in Greek (klon) means twig, and refers to a twig that could give rise to an identical tree. Public perception of human cloning envisions multiple copies of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Saddam Hussein inhabiting earth.
For cloning, two main ingredients are needed: an egg and a somatic cell whose nucleus is going to be placed in the egg.
The first step is to remove the nucleus from the egg, a process called enucleation (or genetic material can be inactivated by radiation). The nucleus of the desired animal will be placed into the enucleated egg. In some cases, they combine the whole cell into the enucleated egg. This process is sometimes called nuclear transplantation, or somatic cell nuclear transfer. Chemicals or electricity then stimulate the new clone. The embryo would grow in a laboratory dish for a few days and is then transferred to a surrogate mother, who would go under normal gestation period to birth.
Possibly the first cloned human embryo was created in South Korea. Doctor Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University collected 242 eggs from 16 volunteers. He replaced the DNA from the egg, and then fused the egg with another cell from the same woman.
About 25 percent of the eggs reached the blastocyst stage (about 100 cells). The Korean team used a new method. They created a tiny hole in the egg's membrane and squeezed the nucleus out of it.
They then replaced the DNA material from the same woman before researchers took the DNA from another woman. After this, they waited a couple of hours to grow the egg. In previous experiments, others did it right away. Koreans are claiming that they made 30 human clones.
Cloning a human being into full term might be happening right now, somewhere. Italian fertility specialist Severino Antinori, said in the United Arab Emirates, one woman among the thousands of infertile couples in the program is eight weeks pregnant with a cloned baby.