The Pros And Cons Of Animal Cloning

When the news first came out in 1996, Dolly the sheep was a global phenomenon. After 277 attempts, she was the first mammal cloned from an udder cell taken from an adult sheep (Lerner 2014). The success of this experiment paved the way into the world of animal cloning for many researchers and scientists to search for multiple uses that cloning could provide. However, cloning also comes with complications and obstacles to overcome. The many methods, benefits, and successes of animal cloning have proved that this could someday become a norm in the world, but, by looking at some of the problems with cloning, it could also be an idea that could never make the big leagues.

“The term cloning describes a number of different processes that can be used

These ways include molecular cloning, organismal cloning, and somatic cell nuclear transfer. In the process of molecular cloning, scientists insert a fragment of DNA into a an element, such as a bacterial plasmid, that is able to self-replicate. It is then directed into a host cell so it can create many copies of that gene (LaPensee 2012). Organismal cloning allows the production of organisms that are genetically identical and could be able to create copies of livestock for farming or to help save members of endangered or even extinct species (Cloning Fact Sheet 2015). “In 1997, another sheep named Polly was cloned using both molecular and organismal cloning. Polly was derived from a fetal sheep cell that had been engineered to contain the human gene that makes coagulation factor IX. Factor IX is missing in people with a disease called hemophilia type B” (Cloning Organisms 2003). In the case with Dolly, somatic cell nuclear transfer was used. When using this technique, scientists first remove a mature somatic cell, like a muscle cell, from the species they want to duplicate. The DNA given from the somatic cell is then moved into an empy oocyte that has had its own nucleus removed (Cloning Fact Sheet 2015). There