Whats the problem with Cloning???

[lucaspa]

Wow, can't believe that they ruled in favor of the parents. Would have thought that harming your child, taking out a vital organ, would constitute at the very least child abuse.

They got away with it because it was bone marrow. You aspirate the bone marrow from only one bone -- a femur or thigh bone -- and then it gets repopulated from the marrow of the other bones.

However, it's the precedent that bothers me. Have a second kid for the purpose of providing a spare part for the first kid.

Then, of course, there's the question of the discarded embryos -- the ones that didn't hve the right tissue match.

Isn't there currently research going where we're trying to grow human parts in animals?

Yep. Pigs. Last I heard, wasn't going very well. The pigs are special in that they are "knockout" pigs, or pigs who've had their own MHCs deleted so that they don't have tissue rejection of the human cells.

I seriously doubt we'd be able to just make an organ from scratch and in a labarotary.

That's being worked on. Eventually, we probably can. But the key here is that word "eventually". Cloning will be here before that is.

There are probabbly many more promising ways of growing body parts aside from having to make an entire clone.

Well, there are several labs working on that using adult stem cells. But again, clone is easier. You don't have to know the biology of organ development or the factors invovled. You just treat the clone as your black box factory.

 

[lucaspa]

"They've cloned a sheep; let's clone the Shepherd."

Why not all we need is some bones, or some blood from the Shroud, and we are in business. Then all we need is someone willing to risk all possible outcomes to perform the actual clone.

Not quite! You need cells with nuclei (red blood cells don't have any) and bone is pretty acellular. And you need the nucleus and DNA intact. Chemical decomposition with even a few breaks in the DNA chains would make cloning impossible. But even if the DNA were intact, if the nuclear membrane has broken -- due to drying -- then no nucleus to do the nuclear transfer.

This isn't nearly as simple as you think.

 

[lucaspa]

Oh, yeah. You need LOTS of cells with intact nuclei and intact DNA. Remember, Dolly was the only success in over 600 tries. In mice the success rate is so much better: 1 in 200 or so now. In humans, the success rate is 0 for 100 the last time I looked.

 

[the_malevolent_milk_man]

Ah, it was bone marrow. Wonder why I was thinking it was a kidney /shrug.

That doesn't really hurt the child (I think) and it will grow back on it's own. Perhaps they wanted another child and figured "Hey, we can have another kid, save our current one, and all with just a relatively minor problem for our second kid."

Feel like I've demonized them a bit, they could have had the best intentions and saw that they could do it without really hurting anybody. Actually seems like a brilliant strategic move now. They lost nothing, saved 1 child, have a second, and they're both healthy, seems like they gained everything and lost nothing. I think that the parents were within their rights to force one child to "donate" bone marrow since it replenishes on it's own. However I'd have to draw the line at organs and other irreplacable body parts.

 

[squigglydoodle]

How do we all know human cloning hasn't already been done in someone's basement? Honestly, right now, all you really need is enough money, the equipment, and a good biologist to do it.