BIOLOGY INVESTIGATORY PROJECT

Human Cloning: Another You?

A paper on a highly controversial biotechnological marvel.

Sai Srimukh, XII2010-2011

This paper is a study of the basic steps involved in the process of cloning an organism,
different ways to clone an organism, ethical controversies regarding it and the benefits and
problemsassociated with it.

Contents
1.Abstract
2.Acknowledgements3.
3 . An Introduction toCloning
4. Human Cloning
5. The Process
6. Ethical Controversies
7. Benefits and Problems
8. Conclusion
9. Sources
Abstract
First, I will try to explain the basic steps
thatare involved in the technology of cloning
anorganism.Then I will move on to the big
question
“Is human cloning possible?”, then I will
describe the complexities and challenges
thatare to be faced during the cloning of a
human.I will then elaborate steps involved
incloning a human, followed by some of
theethical controversies regarding
this technology.Finally, I will conclude this
paper by discussing the benefits and problems
of humancloning.

Acknowledgements
I am very thankful to my parents whoallowed
me to spend quite a number of hours forthe
research on the internet.I also thank my
biology teacher Sir K.V.Rama Raju for giving
me the freedom to choosethe topic for the
investigatory project and hencethis paper.I
also thank the authors of various articlesthat I
referred to.
An Introduction to Cloning

The word “Clone” means, “Identical”,

identical in all aspects. In biological point
of view, two or more organisms are said to
beclones of each other if they are
morphologically,anatomically and
more important, genetically identical. Clones
have identical genome. Sincethe protein
synthesis and metabolism is
controlled by an organism’s genome, clones
are
identical in all aspects.Cloning is done
by nature in many lowerlevel organisms like
Monerans, Fungi, and insome eukaryotes.
Cloning can be clearly observed during
reproduction of these
organisms by a process called “binary
fission” in
which a single cell grows and divides into
twoidentical daughter cells. They are Clones.
This
can also be observed during “multiple fission”
in
some protozoans like
plasmodium
. Cloning can be done artificially to
producegenetically identical organisms.
Several methodshave been developed to
clone an organism. The
most applied method is “Somatic Cell
NuclearTransfer (SCNT)”. This method has
been widely
used to produce a large number of
identicalorganisms.The first fully cloned
animal was a sheepnamed Dolly. It was clone
by SCNT technology.
In Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, an eggfrom
a female is taken and its nucleus is takenout
and is disposed. Then, a cell from the body of
same organism is taken; it must a cell
otherthan the reproductive cells. Any body
cell otherthan the reproductive cell is called
a SomaticCell. The nucleus of this somatic cell
is taken outcarefully and it is inserted into the
previously
‘enucleated’ cell. It is not just
insertion; it is
fused with the hollow egg using electricity.
Thisfools the egg that is hasbeen fertilized.I
will explain it withan example. Suppose
we want to clone a cow
named ‘A’. We will first
request the cow todonate an egg. Since
this has donated us an egg, it is called
a ‘Donor’.Now that we’ve the egg, we will
carefully suck
out the nucleus from it an
d keep the ‘enucleatedcell’ safely. After that,
we will again go to the
donor cow and take a cell from some other
body part. These cells are diploid. Again pull
out thenucleus and this time keep the nucleus
safe.Now, carefully insert this nucleus into
thepreviously enucleated cell and apply
an electriccurrent of suitable voltage.
That’s it! If we’ve done everything perfectly,
the egg (which now pretends to be a
zygote)should develop into an embryo and
slowly into acow which is clone of the donor
cow!Look at this picture, it describes the
SCNTtechnology. This is how Dolly was
cloned

Human Cloning
Scientists have managed to clone a numberof
animals like sheep, cow, mice etc. But,
theirdream of cloning a human remained
unfulfilled.There have been many attempts of
cloning ahuman. It has become more of an
ethical andsocial issue rather than a scientific
advancement.Many scientists claimed that
they have cloned ahuman. In 2004, a South-
Korean scientist andhis team claimed that
they have successfully cloned 11 human
embryos for the purpose of extracting stem
cells; later it was confirmed thatit was a
false statement.Scientists say that is in fact
possible to clonea human by using the famous
SCNT.
A cell, which contains DNA, is taken from the
person who is being cloned. Then the
enucleated egg isfused together with the cloning
subject's cellusing electricity. This creates an
embryo, which
is implanted into a surrogate mother through
in vitro fertilization
.
If the procedure is successful,then the
surrogate mother will give birth to ababy that's a
clone of the cloning subject at theend of a normal
gestation period. Success rate isestimated to
be about 2%.

The Process
Now, I state the steps involved in cloning
ahuman in a brief way. The actual process is
farmore complex than what the steps here
depict.

Step One:
Go fetch a human egg! Yes of course, you
willneed an unfertilized alive human egg.
Scientistsget them from the egg banks where
the eggs arestored safely in an extremely cold
environment,perhaps about -196 degree
Celsius.

Step Two:
The next step is to obtain any body cell
otherthat the reproductive cells from the
individual tobe cloned. These cells are
called Somatic cells.They are preferably
obtained from soft tissues of the body where
the cells are active and young.

Step Three:
After getting the somatic cell, the next step
is toextract its nucleus carefully. After the nucleus
isextracted, the remaining part of the cell
isthrown away and the nucleus is kept safe for
thefollowing process.

Step Four:
Now we take the egg again and extract
itsnucleus. This time, we throw the nucleus
away and keep the hollow cell with us. Yes!
Throw thenucleus away. Only the enucleated
cell is goingto be part of the process.

Step Five:
Now we have all the raw material for the
cloningprocess. In this step, the nucleus
extracted from
the somatic cell is carefully injected into
theenucleated egg. This looks like a brand new
cell!But the process will be incomplete
without thenext step.

Step Six:
To make the cell actually work, the cell has to
beactivated by using an electric spark. Then
thenucleus fuses with the cell and forms a
kind of pseudo zygote. This is the last step of
the humancloning. Since we have produced
a zygote, therest of the process follows
the regular steps likeembryogenesis
etc.Further development of the zygote needs it
to beimplanted into the uterus of a surrogate
mother. After complete growth, the individual
will be anexact clone of the person from whom
thesomatic cell was extracted.
The process seems so easy reading these
sixsteps. But it is in fact extremely complex
and thechance of successful development of
the clonedzygote into an embryo and then into
a fully grown individual is very small.Many
attempts have been made to clone
human.Some of them succeeded in producing
thecloned zygote and even went up to the
embryodevelopment. But the process
ended there.

Ethical Controversies
The whole process seems so interesting.
But,there are number of ethical issues
associated with this technology. Some people
believe thatcloning a human creates another
identity of theexisting human and that would
result in lot of social problems.For example, a
female DNA donor would be theclone's
genetic twin, rather than mother,complicating
the genetic and social relationshipsbetween
mother and child as well as therelationships
between other family members andthe
clone.Many religions are also against this
process.Like,Sunni Muslimsconsider human
cloning tobe forbidden by Islam.

Benefits and Problems

Many scientists believe that the process
of cloning a human could be very
advantageous.Some hope to create a fertility
treatment thatallows parents who are both
infertile to havechildren with at least some of
their DNA in theiroffspring. While others
suggest that humancloning might avoid the
human aging process.One of the considered
options to repair the celldepletion related to
cellularsenescenceis togrow replacement
tissues from stem cellsharvested from a
cloned embryo.There are also as many
problems regarding thistechnology. This is
and extremely expensiveprocess and cannot
be produced easily. Thesuccess rate of
producing a cloned human isextremely low.

Conclusion
So, cloning a human is actually possible and
thisexperiment has been done many times all
overthe world by many organizations. There
are alsomany laws implemented regarding
thiscontroversial process in almost all the
countries.There are only a few countries
where humancloning is not completely
banned. United Statesis one of them. It has
no strict rules that ban thistechnology.This
debate continues forever and some day,some
scientist will definitely make his own cloneand
prove that human cloning is reality.
Sources:
These are the main source of my
research: Wikipedia.comHowStuffworks.com
Scirus.comStumbleUpon.com