Uses of Animal Cloning
Arguments for animal cloning
- Embryo cloning is well accepted and noncontroversial in the field of livestock farming
- Many animals with desirable characteristics can be cloned, ideal for maximising agricultural output eg. milk yield in cattle
- Cloning can also:
- Remove less desirable characteristics from the gene pool over time, much in the way that selective breeding has done
- Help preserve endangered species, ahead of possible reintroduction of those species to the wild
- Provide regenerated organs for patients suffering from degenerative disease. Such organs will be a direct genome match to the patient so would have no risk of rejection by the immune system
Arguments against animal cloning
- The process of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is very hit-and-miss
- It took hundreds of unsuccessful attempts to clone Dolly the sheep
- There are also unknown long-term effects of the cloning process
- Subsequent cloning attempts have led to a high number of early deaths and genetic abnormalities in the clones
- Some cloned animals that survive birth and infancy tend to grow abnormally large (Large Organ Syndrone - LOS)
- LOS can cause breathing and circulatory problems in adult animals
- Other clones have developed abnormalities in other large organs eg. kidneys, or in their immune systems
- No precise 'cause and effect' has been ascribed to the cloning process, but research has indicated that cloning disrupts the normal mechanisms or regulation of gene expression
- Cloning destroys embryos which could in theory develop into a healthy adult animal - the argument put forward by groups such as Pro-Life
- For these reasons, animal cloning has not gathered as much pace as many scientists thought it would
