Cloning Summary Questions

Read your cloning notes and answer the following questions.

1. What is genetic engineering and give an example of why it might be used.
2. What is gene therapy and what might it cure?
3. What was the first mammal clone and how are clones done?
4. List some ethical issues to cloning humans.
5. What is therapeutic cloning and give an example?

GENETIC ENGINEERING AND CLONING

By developing ways to control genetics, Scientists are able to create living organisms with traits that are more desirable.

• Each year farmers spend millions of dollars on insecticides that only have a limited effect on pests and can cause harm to the streams and soil.
  • But, what if we could create a crop that had its own built in insecticide?
• Genetic Engineering is a research field that tries to find ways to change the genetics of living organisms so that the organisms have more desirable traits.

Disease and insects have always been one of the biggest problems facing crop farmers.

• While studying genetics, Scientists realized that some plants seemed to be less affected by insects.
• Geneticists have been able to identify the genes that made a few organisms less susceptible to disease and pests.
• Using selective breeding for these traits, plants that are immune to disease and insects have been developed.
• This technology has led to less crop damage, increased farm production, and less environmental impact.
• This allows farmers to produce more food on less land.
• Crops have also been engineered that produce better tasting food with a longer shelf life.

Farming is not the only field that benefits from genetic engineering.

• Advances in medical research have improved life for people with certain diseases.
• Diabetes is a disease that limits the body’s ability to create or use an important substance called insulin.
  • Insulin is important because it helps to remove sugar from the bloodstream and put it in cells where it can be used by the mitochondria to produce energy.
  • Until a few years ago insulin was extracted from non-human sources.
  • It worked, but was not a perfect solution to the problem.
  • In recent years scientists have found ways to engineer (create) human insulin using bacteria.
  • The human gene that produces insulin is inserted into bacteria.
  • The bacteria then produce human insulin as they reproduce.
  • Then insulin is then harvested from the bacteria and used in patients so that diabetics can have a more normal life.

Gene Therapy

Gene therapy is the insertion of genes into a person’s cells to cure a genetic disorder.

• Gene therapy could not be used to cure diseases that are caused by viruses, like AIDS.
• It only works to fix disorders caused by a faulty gene.
  • The patient would have had this disorder from birth.

Gene therapy uses a vector, or carrier molecule, for the gene.

• The vector helps incorporate the desired gene into the patient's DNA.
• Usually this vector is modified viral DNA in which the viral genes have been removed.
  • Don't worry, the virus used in gene therapy has been deactivated, meaning it is not harmful to the human body.
• Though gene therapy is still in experimental stages for diseases like hemophilia and cystic fibrosis, the common use of this therapy may occur during your lifetime.
• As more research is done and technology improves, scientists will continue to learn more about the genetics of living things and find new ways to improve life on earth.

Several years ago, researchers shocked the world when they announced that a sheep had been cloned.

• A clone is an exact genetic duplicate of a living organism.
• Even though the cloned sheep had problems and did not live a full life, the experiment proved that the cloning of living things was possible.
• What are the potential uses for clones?
• Is cloning the right thing to do?

Watch these videos:

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You have learned about selective breeding.

• Farmers and ranchers use selective breeding to improve the genetic quality of their animals and crops.
  • But, they are still at the mercy of genetic chance.
  • Just because a cow is a great milk producer does not mean that all of her calves will be as productive as she is.
  • Through continued selective breeding the overall genetics of the farm will improve, but that may take many years and cost a lot of money.
  • What if a dairy farmer had a way to make a copy of all of his good cows?
• Cloning has the potential to improve food production while reducing costs and stress on the environment.
  • Simply stated, if a farmer can produce a certain amount of milk with 150 cows and through herd improvement he is able to produce the same amount with only 100 cows, he will save money on feed.
  • The lower number of cows will create less environmental stress.
• At this time, cloning is very expensive and not efficient.
• The cloned animals tend to have bad immune systems and get many types of disease more easily, but with advances in technology, the future looks bright for cloning in farm animals.

Cloning farm animals is not very controversial.

• But, what if someone had a pet that they really loved and that pet died?
• Would it be right for them to clone that pet so that they had an exact copy of it?
• Many people fear that if cloning is perfected that scientists in a country that we have no control over will try to clone people.
  • Would it be nice if you could clone yourself and your clone was your slave?
  • You could send your clone to school, make them do your chores, and attend all of the activities that you do not want to go to, right?
  • Well, not exactly.

Cloning people presents some serious ethical problems.

• Many people feel that it would be wrong to clone humans and that there are no real advantages to it.
• A human clone would still be human and would have to be treated as such.
• So, you’ll have to do your own chores.

What Cloning Is, and What Cloning Is Not

Cloning is the creation of an exact genetic copy of an organism through artificial methods.

• A clone must grow and develop from the beginning stages of life inside the mother’s womb.
• Scientists cannot and probably will never be able to send an organism through a machine and have the copy walk out the other side like you see in some movies.
• The clone would have to grow, develop, and learn just as any other living thing does.
• Knowledge would be different for the clone and its parent and the expression of the clone’s genetics would be subject to the environment in which it was raised.

As more research is done and technology improves, Scientists will continue to learn more about the genetics of living things and find new ways to improve life on earth.

• We will find better ways to do things and our theories and ideas about how we look at living organisms will continue to change.

Therapeutic Cloning: A New Hope

A very promising form of cloning is called therapeutic cloning.

• Therapeutic cloning is the cloning of body organs to replace those that are worn out or damaged.
  • Hundreds of thousands of people die each year that could be saved if they had access to organ transplants.
  • The list of people who are waiting to receive a transplant is far greater than the number of organs that are available for transplant.
  • At this time, in order for one person to receive an organ, another person must die.
  • Therapeutic cloning could change that.
• Scientists are currently looking for ways that a certain kind of cell, called a stem cell, could be harvested from the sick person and a new organ, genetically identical to their damaged one, could be cloned for a transplant.
  • When scientists are able to do this, they will extend hundreds of thousands of lives each year.