-Caveat Lector-
grow a copy of yourself, without a brain - there now there are no moral
issues about growing another person, its just meat. Now freeze the meat.
excellent, you have a source of replacement organs, that wont be rejected.
that's not a bad thing
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
William of Occam
NEURONAUTIC INSTITUTE on-line: http://home.earthlink.net/~thew
From: Amelia [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: Conspiracy Theory Research List [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 01:20:13 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [CTRL] Cloning people easier than animals?
-Caveat Lector-
Well, heck! Let's just clone a couple hundred and see. If it does
not work out and they are hideously deformed and defective like the
animals have been, we can just harvest the good organs and use the
rest of their bodies for stem cell research! Think of all the rich
people that can buy the products that this will help. Who cares if
someone dies as long as the wealthy no longer have to take their
insulin. Unless, of course, you ARE the clone.
Oh, well, nevermind! I wonder if some day people will come to their
sense and develop a conscience and then be saying this was all the
fault of the current Pope because he KNEW all about this and did
nothing to stop it, etc. It is a strange planet on which we live.
~Amelia~
Cloning people easier than animals?
Duke University scientists believe so; others disagree
MSNBC NEWS SERVICES
Aug. 15 - A genetic characteristic that sets apart primates from
other mammals makes humans technically easier to clone than sheep,
cows, pigs and mice because it averts a major obstacle encountered
in animal cloning, Duke University researchers report.
'It seems that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and the
authors have allowed themselves to over-interpret their interesting
findings.'
- IAN WILMUT
Roslin Institute PRIMATES SUCH AS humans, apes and monkeys
possess two functional copies of a gene that helps regulate fetal
growth, meaning cloned babies are protected from experiencing fetal
overgrowth, which has plagued animal cloning efforts, the
scientists said.
People get one functional copy from each parent. However,
sheep, pigs, mice and nearly all non-primate mammals receive only
one working copy of the gene. The other copy, from the father, is
intact, but permanently switched off. That is caused by a
phenomenon known as gene imprinting, where the gene carries
chemical markings that turn off its function.
In this so-called large-offspring syndrome, many cloned
mammals grow abnormally big in the womb and generally die just
before or after birth. These clones also have under-developed lungs
and reduced immunity to disease.
It's going to be probably easier to clone us than it would
be to clone these other animals because you don't have this
problem - not easy, but easier, said Randy Jirtle, professor of
radiation oncology at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and the
study's senior author.
The study appears in Wednesday's issue of the journal
Human Molecular Genetics.
While the gene, insulin-like growth factor II receptor
(IGF2R), is a suspect in some of the problems in cloned animals, it
is not the only one, said Ian Wilmut, a professor at the Roslin
Institute, the home of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be
cloned from an adult.
It seems that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and
the authors have allowed themselves to over-interpret their
interesting findings, Wilmut said.
I hope this will not be used to give encouragement to those
who wish to clone humans, he added.
Mouse cloning researcher William Rideout, whose laboratory
at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge,
Mass., has made key contributions to animal cloning technology,
also took issue with the study.
From everything we've looked at, the overgrowth phenotype
in the mice cannot be attributed to a single gene or even a single
pathway so far. It looks much more like a sort of random
disregulation across many genes, Rideout said.
Lee Silver, a molecular biologist at Princeton University,
said the IGF2R gene is just one of many genes that get silenced in
animals and could potentially cause problems in cloning. Until
scientists discover whether those other genes are switched on or
off in humans and how important a role they play in the overall
success of cloning, it will remain unclear whether cloning will be
safer in humans than in other animals.
Jirtle, whose laboratory does not perform cloning and is not
slated to do so in the future, said the fact that human cloning may
be more feasible than previously thought should change the dynamics
of the debate over making cloned babies.
You move the debate from, 'Can we do this?' to, 'Should
we do this?' he said. Scientists to a great deal have been hiding
