How do you spell breakthrough? D-O-L-L-Y !
Dateline: 03/06/97What if humans could fly? What if we could live for two hundred years? What if there were several other people out there exactly like us? Wait... this was supposed to be a litany of distant possibilities. We shuddered last week when we saw the headlines, Dolly is a clone! And no, we're not talking about the tabloid headlines about Dolly Parton. Scientists have succeeded in cloning an adult mammal to produce a sheep named Dolly. That means that Dolly is genetically identical to her mother! And Dolly doesn't have a daddy! Wow! Where could this lead?
In a nutshell, scientists extracted some nuclei from the udder cells of an adult sheep and inserted the nuclei into ova. The original nuclei in the ova had been removed. Nuclei contain DNA, (deoxyribonucleic acid, for the technically inclined) the basic "building blocks" of life through which genetic information is passed. On a simple level, DNA allows the transmission of your grandfather's distinct nose or your mother's beautiful dimples. When the nuclei were transferred to the ova, the "adult" nuclei acted as if they were "baby" nuclei and began to divide. The research team then implanted the dividing egg into the "mother" who had produced the original egg and a little while later, an exact genetic copy-- a clone -- was born! Hmmm, we used to think that cloning was the stuff of science fiction and late night horror movies.
If these events weren't shocking enough, another research group at Portland's Oregon Health Sciences University, using a similar technique, announced that they had had success in cloning primates. Unlike Dolly, whose donor cells came from an adult, the cloning of the primates involved using embryos. Scientists are divided on the significance of this work, since many labs have used embryos to produce clones for at least the last decade. Even so, just a little too close to home, don't you think?
To cut to the chase, this is a big step, and we do mean BIG! Theoretically, it is possible for scientists to unlock the mechanisms for cloning humans, which leads us to all kinds of implications. Would you want to be cloned? Imagine, you have a doctor's appointment, you give just a wee bit of blood, and a year later you find out that you have a genetic double. While I'm exaggerating a bit, the implications are enormous.
What do you think? Come over to the Biology Forum and share your thoughts, opinions, and feelings. Untill next time...
For additional information see:
Cloning
Information on human cloning, nuclear transfer, a cloning time line and more.
