Cloning..

"Cloning" means duplicate whole organism particularly mammals in the laboratory. Scientists had shown that they can create sheep, cat, pig mouse n many other things in artificial ways.

Cloning is not new anymore n not unnatural in the sense that Mother Nature has already allowed n showed her desire to duplicate living things.

Reproduction indeed is a natural way of cloning. Sexual cloning is found naturally in higher organisms, such as mammals including humans. The nature has allowed cloning or duplication of genes without any problems n the human society has accepted twins n even considered them as a gift fr God.

In science, "cloning" means copying of a portion or whole of a gene. Human beings have been using cloning practice since thousands of years ago in agriculture.

Reasons of cloning:
a) In medicine, to improve health care, to study disease processes, to develop new drugs, n to replace damage organs;
b) In industry, to improve quality n quantity of animal husbandry n agriculture;
c) And also to preserve extinct plants or animals which r on the verge of extinction.


Some of the examples fr the results of cloning:

Eagle head, dog body

Lion head, cat body

Bull dog head, monkey body

Some combinations of 3 animals

Horse head n dog body

Some combinations of 3 animals too!

Weirdo!!!

Nice!!!

Croc's head

How much man made cloning materials hav been integrated in everyday human lives up to this day in health sector?? You'll be surprised to know that vaccine recommended by WHO to prevent hepatitis virus B is manufactured by DNA cloning techniques.

The notorious hepatitis virus B which infects human population more than human immunodeficiency virus can induce liver cancer, liver cirrhosis n liver failure. Non infectious portion of this deadly viral DNA is copied or cloned into bacterial DNA to produce large amount of antigen or protein in bacteria. When this protein is injected, it can elicit specific antibodies against HBV infection.

Human insulin for diabetes n erythropoietin for anemia r produced by genetic engineering in huge quantity, making undisputable benefit to millions of patients all around the world.

Cervical cancer affecting thousands of women can now be prevented by vaccines produced by genetic manipulation.

Meningitis, a serious inflammation of coverings of human brain caused by meningococcal bacteria infects thousands of African children who live in 21 nations of sub-Saharan Africa. This deadly scourge is now prevented by receiving a low cost vaccine made from genetic engineering.

All these genetically engineered drigs n vaccines r produced which is based on one scientific principle, cloning or copying of portion of desired gene to produce desired proteins or vaccines.

Possibility of animal cloning was first theorised n experimented by a German scientist Hans Spemann in 1935. DOLLY was cloned fr the udder of an adult sheep in 1996. This was followed by cloning of other mammals.

Dolly, the sheep

How was Dolly cloned?? The idea is very simple. The whole set of genes fr a donor adult cell of a sheep is transferred to an egg of a sheep which lacks genes of its own. The next step is, the egg with the donor genes is placed into a womb of a surrogate mother sheep who will complete the process of pregnancy. The animal born is a clone, which contains a complete set of identical donor genes. This technique is known as 'Somatic Nuclear Transfer'. In simplest term, it is the transfer of whole sets of donor nuclear DNA to an egg devoid of its own DNA for cloning purpose. But this technique is not perfect.

Dolly died at the age of 7 years with multiple genetic defects.

WHAT IS THE REASON OF THIS FAILURE?? The reason may be there r many genetic mechanisms not known to the scientists in developing fetus during pregnancy.

There is another cloning, which is not intended to clone the whole organism but to produce spare tissues n organs such as hearts, liver, blood cells etc. to replace damaged ones which r ultimate outcomes of ageing or disease processes of humans. This cloning technique follows the same principle as reproductive cloning n is known as 'Therapeutic Cloning'. The advantage is, there will be no tissue rejection or incompatibility when replacing the damaged tissues or organs because the cells r exact copy or clone of the patient.

You do not need to find n wait for long time for the donor. And also u do not need to worry about transmitting disease fr donor. It is just the same as replacing old or bad ones with brand new original spare parts in motor vehicles.

When we look at the past thousands of years, the average life span of human was around 25 years. Now we live more than triple to that figure. This is because we know how to survive n live longer by changing n modifying our life style, diet n improving health care systems based on the scientific knowledge.