Sheep Cloning Essay, Research Paper

Cloning is one area of genetics that is advancing very rapidly, and it is therefore very controversial. A clone is a group of genetically identical cells descended from a single ancestor. A clone is made up of plasmids, groups of identical structures, that contain genetic material such as mitochondria and chloroplasts. Plasmids are found in bacteria and yeasts. The bacteria in yeasts are combined with an animal or plant genes that allow scientists to produce identical copies of the gene.

Cloning is a very important subject in life because the cloned organisms are useful in research. Scientists can test different drugs and other chemicals on bacterial clones.

The history of cloning shows how far scientists have come with this area of genetics. This history is important because it lets us know how far cloning has come to include subjects, such as plants, animals, and humans. It is also helpful because we can look back and become educated about this topic.

Cloning plants was a lot easier than cloning animals. Plant breeders have been taking advantage of the ability of cloning for a long time. The clone will need to have exactly the same genes as the original. The farmer that grows these plants from seed never knows exactly how it s going to turn out. Cloning also saves time because, plants grown in test tubes bloom sooner than plants grown from seed.

Every year 8 billion trees are cut down for human needs. Cloning might solve the problem of cutting down to many trees. In 1998 an

Australian company ForBio announced a new technology for cloning and growing trees. This technology can help scientists produce about 1000 clones a day. At that rate it would be very expensive to produce this number of clones. ForBio could then produce 50 million trees by 3 years.

It is exciting to clone animals but it might be dangerous. It s not good to use animals just like it s something small. The cloning of animals is still in its early stages. Technology for cloning the animals is developing very fast. In February 1997 there was a sheep cloned named Dolly. In 1952 the first cloning experiment was done with frogs by Robert Briggs and T.J. King, they added the nucleus of an advanced frog embryo cell to a frog egg, but it showed no development. Also in 1981 Karl Illmencee and Peter Hoppe reported that they had produced normal mice from mouse embryo cells that later on was discovered they had faked the results. These results show that progress in cloning animals has not been too successful.

The human Cloning is the most difficult. It may be 10 years or more before the 1st human being is cloned. Scientists believe cloned human parts will not result in identical forms. For example the shape of the kidney or curve of the skull will not be the same. Also, because the human brain is the control of ones behavior, no 2 brains are ever alike, therefore, making it hard to clone humans. Simple methods of cloning for more than 2,000 years have been used.

Creating a human tissue by cloning human cells could be useful. For example if there is a burned skin they can take the skin and use it to add the skin to the wounded area, but it will probably leave a scar. Cells would be taken from the person to be cloned and genetic material from one cell that would be injected into the egg. Then after a few days the embryo would be implanted in a woman’s uterus to grow into a baby and eventually be born. Cloning might also be a solution when the mother or the father carries a gene for a disease. If a mom has a gene carrying hemophilia and she has a baby with her husband there is a big chance that the baby will be born with a disease.

In conclusion it is shown that cloning has been difficult to do. Scientists have not been able to succeed in this area. So far, all they have been clone are plants, and sheep. However, there are many years to come to successfully clone human beings. I feel that cloning is a very important.