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In biology, cloning refers to the process of creating an identical copy of a cell or a specific organism from the original. The word clone is actually known to be derived from the Greek word klōn (1) which means a twig in botany. In bioengineering, cloning has created many discoveries. One purpose of cloning experiments was to produce large numbers of genetically identical laboratory organisms for research. Animals with a known and controlled heredity for instance could be very helpful in the study of cancer, aging, birth defects and the regeneration of damaged body parts. Through cloning, scientists and researchers are able to create many breakthroughs for humans in the future. It can prove to be very advantageous for the human race but is generally not widely accepted by the society and the governments. However, research is continuous and scientists are convinced that cloning will prove to be very beneficial and will aid in curing many health related issues. Cloning was initially not admired when it was first achieved but attained its popularity ever since the Dolly Sheep (2) was successfully cloned and was born in 1996.

Cloning is not as simple as putting someone in a machine, and getting an exact copy like a photocopy. There are many steps that are done in order to get another organism. However, success rates are low, and people believe that research is useless. There have been many discussions on the social, ethical and legal issues throughout the decade concerning cloning. Not only experts on the topic, but philosophers, religious leaders and politicians argue on their definition on what is “right”. Each person’s opinion is based on their society, traditions, culture and beliefs. But with biotechnology quickly developing, we will not know until the future whether this process would be accepted or not.

Background
People may believe that cloning is that certain process that has just been discovered and has been utilized by scientists over the course of a few years. This isn’t actually so. The experimentation with cloning was done since the 1800s. On the other hand, many researchers and scientists believe that cloning not only is a laboratory process but it occurs naturally as well within plants. However, in regards to biotechnology, cloning was essentially achieved in 1885 by a scientist named Hans Dreisch (3) by mistake. He in reality did not wish to create cloned animals. He presented a theory stating that during cell division, no form of genetic material is ever lost. In order to prove his statement, this scientist had taken a sea urchin (3) .He used this form of animal because of two important factors: firstly, the embryos of the sea urchin were fairly large; and secondly, the embryos grew independently and did not require for them to be developed within their parent. Taking this into consideration, Dreisch took the embryo of the sea urchin which was two celled, placed in sea water; in a beaker. Then he had shaken it until the 2cells were completely separated. After some time, the separated embryo began developing on its own, eventually forming adult sea urchins. The type of cloning that he had initially done was called embryo twinning (4) .This proved his theory that no genetic material is lost when cellular division takes place within any living organism.

Embryo twinning (4) was also performed by the scientist Hans Spemann; director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Biology in Berlin in 1902. He had cloned salamanders instead. His method was entirely different from Driesch because the salamander fish had a backbone, and by shaking it the cells in the embryo could not separate as easily. The technique he opted for was that he took a strand of hair from his baby boy and used it to split the embryo. It was successfully achieved. Two adult salamanders were formed and identical twins had been created. Later on, when he attempted to clone more complex organisms such as mammals, it was impossible at the time to do so because the eggs of the mammals were not as clearly visible in comparison to the salamander and the sea urchins (Amphibians). Lack of technology at that time period did not allow further advancement in cloning. Later Spemann also proposed the theory on nuclear transfer, where genetic material of one adult is taken and inserted into another adult. This theory was used by other scientists too.

With the advancement of technology taking place over the years, nuclear transfer (4) was able to occur more concisely and consistently. Through this procedure, the two scientists Robert Briggs and Thomas King were able to clone a frog (5) November, 1951.What they performed was that they took the nucleus out from one embryo of the frog and inserted it into a frog egg cell that was unfertilized. When the cell eventually detected that a full set of chromosomes were found within the cell, it began to divide and grow creating a cloned frog. Ever since this successful experiment, the process of nuclear transfer is still used today and is the most basic process of cloning living organisms. The scientists realized one important factor in relation to cloning; it was that the process of cloning must take place before the cells were differentiated and further specialized. Using such cells in cloning created abnormalities in the results. Possibly these types of cells were only able to be cloned in plants such as the carrot that was cloned from a mature carrot root by F.C Steward in 1958 (5) .In 1986, cloning gained its popularity when the first mammal was actually cloned. The embryologist Ian Wilmut at the institute of Rosalin in Scotland. His job was to clone a sheep. However while he cloned the sheep, he wanted to ensure that a certain chemical was present in the sheep’s milk. This meant that the gene required to be altered in order to have that specific characteristic. Wilmut did so. He altered the genes and then cloned them.

Further research was done for his project starting from 1990. Afterwards, one of his colleagues had helped him and offered him a few suggestions to which cloning the sheep would be successful. In the process of his research, many of his cloning attempts were proven to fail because as the cell would divide and further develop, it was not strong enough and would die. Wilmut and his colleague had thought about the option of starving the cells. By doing so, this had allowed an increase in the rate of survival of the cloned cells. (5) The two cloned sheep’s that were in reality first created were Morgan and Morag from the sheep embryos. Dolly was eventually created and born in 1996 by utilizing a frozen mammary cell; which is initially a differentiated adult cell. In order for her to be successfully cloned, 277 attempts were taken by the institute. However, she only lived for 6 years. The one problem with Dolly was that she aged very quickly (5) That is how cloning received its official recognition and from then on, extensive research was done more on cloning.

Process
DNA cloning is the process in which a DNA fragment in one organism is used to replicate to make the same organism. There are three types of cloning; (6)
 * Recombinant DNA Technology (DNA Cloning)
 * Reproductive Cloning
 * Therapeutic Cloning

Recombinant DNA Technology or DNA Cloning
This type of cloning is the transfer of a DNA fragment from the ‘organism of interest’ and inserting this fragment into a bacterial plasmid. A plasmid can be described as a circular chromosome DNA molecule found in bacteria that can self-replicate. This practice has been used in molecular biology since the 1970s. The Human Genome Project uses bacterial genome to copy genes in order to study Scientists would study a gene that they want to clone (such as insulin). The steps in using recombinant DNA are the following:
 * 1) The DNA fragment is isolated from the wanted gene using restriction enzymes
 * 2) The fragment is inserted into the bacterial DNA, and combines with the bacterial plasmid
 * 3) The bacterium is now altered, and the recombinant DNA can be reproduced with the host cell.

Other than bacteria, cloning could also be used on viruses, yeast artificial chromosomes and bacteria artificial chromosomes.

Reproductive Cloning
Reproductive cloning, also known as animal cloning, is technology used to clone an animal using the same DNA as another existing animal. For example, Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned, was made under a process called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, in which scientists take genetic material from the nucleus of the organism under interest, and injecting it into a cell whose nucleus has been removed. This new cell goes under an electric shock or chemicals in order to commence the cell division process. When the blastocysts (a group of cells after cell division) have been created, this embryo is put into a female host where the process of developing will continue until it is born. (7) However, there has been debate whether Dolly is a clone. The reasoning being only the chromosomal DNA comes from the original donor while the other organelles (cytoplasm, mitochondria, etc) came from the enucleated. Another issue is the health of the new clone. Although Dolly appeared quite normal, she suffered lung cancer and arthritis, which caused her to live half her life expectancy. Scientists believe that this process could cause high rates of death, deformity and disability with the clones.

Therapeutic Cloning
Therapeutic cloning, also known as Embryo Cloning, is the process in which human embryos are used in research. This process involves the study of stem cells. This process is not meant to create actual clones of humans, rather use stem cells from embryos in order to cure diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Since stem cells are unspecialized, these cells can generate into any cell of the body (liver, brain, heart, etc.). A biotechnology company from Massachusetts, USA called Advanced Cell Technologies announced in 2001, that they had cloned human embryos in order to study therapeutic research. They collected eggs from women’s ovaries. The genetic material was removed, and a skin cell nucleus was inserted. The results of these experiments were not successful, and now the controversy continues whether or not stem cell research should be banned or not.

Benefits
Although cloning may have disadvantages, it also has benefits towards the medical field. The process of cloning has led the scientists to discover disease causing genes and that it may also be the cure for these diseases. Genetic screening determines whether one has inherited a gene through a parent who also has the gene that causes diseases, where there is a chance of also developing that disease. Recombinant DNA technology is applied to other biotechnology such as gene therapy, genetic engineering and improving the ecosystem. (8)
 * Gene Therapy is used to treat genetic disorders that uses viruses, and changes the genetic code in order to correct genes in the body.
 * The process of cloning on plants may improve crop quality and gives them resistance to herbicides; damage; and diseases. The process of cloning in plants is beneficial to agriculture. Since cloned plants reproduce quicker than normal plants, harvesting time will actually decrease, and pollination will not be relied upon. Genetic engineering will actually resist the plant from getting diseases.
 * It can be used to help endangered animals or animals that cannot bred. For example, in 2001 an endangered wild ox was cloned, but dies 48 hours later. Cloning an extinct animal would be challenging since an egg and the animal itself would be needed to make a clone.

In therapeutic cloning, with future research, this information and process can potentially treat many medical problems such as birth defects, spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, and even a cure for cancer. However, the controversy regarding stem cells relating to killing a fetus in order to obtain an embryo has ethical issues.

Scientists also hope that therapeutic cloning can be used to make organs and tissues for transplants. In this process DNA from the person needing a transplant would be taken and inserted into an enucleated egg. The egg starts to divide and can transform into the type of tissue needed. In theory, this new, cloned organ can be used to replace the organ of a patient, without the body rejecting the tissue. Therefore, organ donation would be reduced.

Risks
Whether or not cloning is banned, it will always have risks. More than 90 % of cloning fails to produce an offspring. It could take 100 nuclear transfers, and only one may be successful. Even if it is successful, the chances of infection, disorders and tumor are increased. (9) In Japan, cloned mice die early and have not lived long enough to collect data. Just because the clone seems healthy in the beginning, does not mean they cannot die. There have been reported deaths of clones that die for no apparent reason. For example, Australia’s first cloned sheep died the day after although it appeared energetic on the first day and there was no cause of death. In 2002, the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research in Massachusetts’ researchers have reported that after cloning 10, 000 liver cells of mice, only 4% work properly.

Social and Ethical Issues
Human cloning has been one of the world’s major excitements in the branch of science. The thought of cloning has made many possibilities. However, the debate has been among scientists, philosophers, organizations and religious leaders whether or not cloning is ethical. Firstly, there is a general agreement, that cloning humans just for the purpose of having a genetic copy baby is unethical. Professor Wilmut, a scientist is the United States Congress has said that cloning a high failure rate since out of the 277 embryos used to make Dolly, only one was successful. “Similar experiments with humans would be totally unacceptable”, Wilmut stated. Even if it was possible to clone a human, there is a high risk of deformity and disability. Dolly herself had lung disease and arthritis. Even if these problems were fixed, there would still be questions ;(10)
 * When should reproducing children be allowed and forbidden?
 * Should cloning only be allowed for those couples who cannot produce children?
 * Is it right for parents to choose future traits for their child?
 * Who exactly is the parent if you cloned from another child?
 * Are the benefits better than the ethical issues?
 * What be the mental, and social challenges of the cloned organism? Would they be confused by their own identity?
 * Are humans playing god by trying to create another organism with specific characteristics?
 * Does an embryo have the same right as a human?
 * Should this research be allowed? By who and how?

Most of these questions are still unanswered and in debate, (11) which is why the world of cloning can really only stay in our imagination. Other issues related to using stem cells are also argued upon whether destroying a human embryo is right
 * 1) REDIRECT (Link to Stem Cell Issues)

Legal Implications
The international view on cloning is generally negative, especially related to human cloning. In the year 2005, the United Nations (UN) had voted to approve a non-binding on all types of human cloning. The UK government was ahead on the vote and had stated that by the ban created on human cloning, it would not affect the stem cell research that is taking place in their country. The non-binding declaration was put into effect since most of the members were not able to agree on a specific binding ban. (12) Even though reproductive cloning was banned under the resolution, there were still many supporters for therapeutic cloning. However, even though therapeutic cloning provides many benefits such as curing Parkinson’s disease, the UN still considered reproductive and therapeutic cloning as dangers to human life. That is why they created a ban in order to protect their societies. (13) While some countries such as the UK, the United States of America and Canada had approved of this ban, many other countries had disapproved of it. That is why the non-binding declaration was formed. The political leaders believed that although therapeutic cloning proves to be beneficial, it can cause exploitation of many women. (13)

Human embryos are required in order for therapeutic cloning to take place. Although it can prove to be very advantageous and helpful in curing certain diseases, it would require a great amount of those embryos. The constant act of extracting an embryo for each clone can prove to be very dangerous and fatal for women. The governments of most countries cannot put their own people at risk which is why majority of them voted to ban all types of cloning. However since it is non-binding, some countries and/or states/regions still allow for therapeutic cloning to take place. But this is very few in comparison to the majority who disapproves and bans all types of human cloning. (14)

Future Direction
In today’s society, people generally believe that cloning will bring absolute harm and no benefit. People only give importance to human cloning. They believe that this type of specific cloning is immoral and should never be practiced. However, cloning has many other benefits besides that. Developments in cloning that are currently taking place and that will proceed on into the future will have very little or no relation to human cloning. They will in fact be further researched in order to help cure health related diseases, understand the complexity of our DNA structure further, and comprehend cell development more in detail. In the future, possibly cloning will not be focused in replicating humans and/or animals (14). The different ways in which cloning can be used in the present as well as in the future would be:


 * Transgenic Animals: Currently, they are known to be very useful and beneficial for biomedical research. (14) Human genes can be inserted into animals such as pigs and sheep’s, in order for them to produce human proteins in their milk. As that occurs, they can aid in curing many diseases. For instance, they can have the ability to produce insulin which can be the cure for diabetes. Currently, this method is being used to cure cystic fibrosis; a hereditary disease. One downfall currently is that this process of entering the human gene inside the animal is too costly and very time consuming. The process of cloning will allow nuclear transfer to take place making transgenic animals forming possible more quickly.
 * Xenotransplantation: With cloning, this process can take place more successfully. Often organ transplants take place throughout the world. However, organs are not always matched with the body and at the same time, there can be a shortage of donors as well. In relation to transgenics, nuclear transfer can take place in which the cloned animals will be carrying the human gene. In this way they will have a greater chance of being accepted by the human body and the organ can be effectively transplanted. In the future, if this process still fails, perhaps people will be capable of cloning their own organs. (14)* In the future, cloning can be very helpful to reprogram cells in order to cure certain diseases. For instance, skin cells can be possibly reprogrammed in order to produce insulin. Once that takes place, they will be entering into a diabetic patient, producing its own insulin. (14)
 * The process of nuclear transfer in cloning can create many new possibilities. Especially in animals, this process would be extremely beneficial in conserving certain breeds. The embryos of animals would be kept frozen in order to prevent them from being endangered or extinct. As the process further develops and advances, it will eventually become less expensive and more efficient. (14)
 * Cloning can also benefit in the future study if cell development by studying the in depth process of nuclear transfer. It will also give scientists a better insight on differentiates and specialized cells as well as oocytes, egg and cytoplasm. Future research in cloning can also create opportunities in discovering new cloning techniques as well.