To Clone or Not to Clone?

A little, nine-year-old girl is diagnosed with terminal cancer of the heart; therefore, her only hope to survive is to wait on a transplant that matches her blood type. Even if this little girl does get a transplant, it is possible that her body will reject the donor heart. If cloning was a more widely accepted method, then scientists could create an identical, genetically-matched heart to save this little girls life. At first, cloning was just science fiction in books and movies, but as scientists improved their methods and researched further, they found that the theory of cloning was not so farfetched. In present day, scientist have discovered several ways to clone, some better than others, which all prove that cloning is an effective research and medical technique. There are many practical purposes for cloning, from general research to genetic harvesting, and with all these purposes come rather beneficial advantages. To fully understand cloning, one must understand its complex meaning.

First, if someone were to think of the word clone, they would probably imagine evil identical counterparts or massive armies of genetically-superior soldiers. In reality, if a human was to be cloned one would not be evil or part of a super army, but he or she would be just as human as any of us with a unique personality. The definition of cloning is very sketchy and controversial, but essentially, cloning is the scientific way to create twins, or nature's clones. There is a long history behind cloning starting with science fiction, and moving on to Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics. As Thomas Parmalee states in his book, Genetic Engineering, "[Mendel] experimented on pea plants from 1856 to 1863. Through his experiments, Mendel was able to purify a desired trait in a pea plant through self-pollination. He then bred the offspring that contained the desired trait with a plant that had a different trait." (20). Starting with this pioneer of modern-day genetics, scientists continued to contribute to his research until they were finally able to clone their first cells, bacteria, plants, and one of their most astonishing and controversial scientific breakthroughs, Dolly the lamb. As John Mill states in her book, Cloning: Opposing Viewpoints, Dolly was born in 1997 at the Roslin Institute in Scotland which left the world in awe. She was created with a cell from an adult ewes utter, and this was an astounding breakthrough because of this method in which they cloned her (10).

Furthermore, there have been many different methods with which people have attempted cloning, but there are two methods that have proved to be the most promising: molecular and cellular. According to David Goodnough,

[Molecular cloning] is used to produce medicines such as insulin, which is used to treat diabetes. In this method, pieces of DNA containing genes are placed in a host cell kept in a liquid culture in a petri dish. The cell then divides and produces exact copies of the DNA, which can then be used for experimentation in finding and testing new medicines. . . . [C]ellular cloning, in which cells are taken from the body and kept in a liquid culture. The cells divide, producing identical copies of the original. Since this process does not involve egg cells or sperm cells, the cloned cells do not develop any further. This method again provides identical cells for the development of new medicines. (23)

Next, there are many great purposes for cloning, starting with basic research, which can help develop new and improved medicines for