Cloning Today

During my interview with my grandmother I asked her what

she thought of cloning. she responded by saying that it was not

right and should be stopped. on the other hand i have a different

opinion. I think that cloning should be continued and furhter

researched for we might be able to have different organs and

substances produced in these clones. Below is the step that

were taken to clone the adult sheep named Dolly.

Part 1: An Improbable Goal Scientists hoped that cloning

healthy, mature sheep, rather than just creating lambs from

embryonic cells, could produce a highly specialized sheep with

large quantities of proteins in its milk. The proteins are believed to

help treat diseases such as emphysema, hemophylia and cystic fibrosis.

Part 2: The Perfect Timing For years, scientists could not

synchronize the growth of the egg and the cell. If one was off-

synch, abnormal chromosomes would soon transform in the

nucleus and thereby kill off the embryo. Dr. Wilmut achieved near

perfection in the timing by putting the cells into hybernation; of the

277 eggs they began with, 247 lived through the process. Timing

the growth in other species, however, has proved to scientists

that cloning mature animals is extremely difficult; in the case of

mice, they've concluded it can't be accomplished.

Part 3: Jump-start from a Jolt Though it has become a

standard procedure in cloning, scientists are not sure why an

electric pulse sent to the two cells causes them to meld together

and activates development in the egg. They are learning,

however, the shock doesn't fully mimic the activation process of a

sperm, which could explain why just 29 of the remaining 247 cells

live longer than six days.

Part 4: Surrogate Motherhood Despite the fact that the newly

formed embryo is transplanted into the uterus of another ewe,

scientists believe Dolly is a nearly exact carbon-copy of her

genetic originating mother. In theory, that means an almost exact

look-alike of John F. Kennedy Jr. could be produced by taking

cells from his skin, melding their nuclei with any woman's egg that

has had its nucleus removed and then planting the embryo in a

surrogate mother.

Part 5: A 6-Year-Old in 7 Months? Scientists are eagerly

watching Dolly to see if she exhibits the characteristics of her

mother, a 6-year-old sheep, or those of her own age, just 7

months. As animals and humans age, changes occur in their DNA

- such as decreasing fertility and increasing susceptibility to

cancer and other diseases. If she prematurely ages, clones of

mature animals would be useless to the agriculture industry.

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