Cloning: Is Man About to Make Himself In His Own Image?
The idea of cloning a human being is far from absurd in light of stunning developments in the world of science.
by Cecil E. Maranville
Likely most of you would say, "God
would never allow man to clone himself." Don't be too sure!
Multiplicity, a zany movie
released a few years ago, centered around the comedic plot of an overworked
building contractor that had himself cloned in order to meet the many
demands on his time. The idea that a genetic engineer could copy a
man like a Xerox machine copies a document was, of course, absurd!
But the idea of cloning a human
being is far from absurd in light of stunning developments in the world
of science. While geneticists cannot instantly make a fully mature
adult like the movie, cloning is no longer science fiction.
Cloning research and experimentation
has been conducted for four decades, but it underwent a dramatic breakthrough
with the successful cloning of a sheep known around the world as Dolly. That
was in 1996. The event exploded upon the scientific community, for
most believed that genuine cloning was simply impossible.
What is cloning? It is the production
of an exact genetic replica. Dolly is the exact duplicate-in every
detail-of a sheep that was six years old when its clone was born. The
older sheep was neither mother nor father to Dolly. Its contribution
was a single cell taken from its udder and stored in a laboratory freezer
until the series of experiments that led to the creation of Dolly were
conducted.
How Is It Done?
How is cloning accomplished? Here
is a brief and greatly simplified explanation. In the making of Dolly,
Dr. Ian Wilmut, an embryologist, took a healthy egg cell and removed
its nucleus. Taking the frozen udder cell from the adult sheep, he
fused its nucleus into the shell of the egg cell. Providing a minute
electrical charge, he was able to "fool" the egg cell into beginning
to divide and grow just as if it had been fertilized.
Related Information on UCG Sites:
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