Genetic Engineering

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Genetic Engineering

On February 24, 1997 news broke globally that Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Scotland had successfully cloned the genetic material of an adult sheep and had created the infant Dolly. The discovery instantly caught the worlds attention because Dolly had only one parent; Dolly had been formed by transferring the genetic material of an adult female into one of its own embryos. This process, known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, refers to removal of genetic material from an adult cell and then implantation of that material into an embryo that has had its original genetic material removed. The only way to clone an existing animal uses the process of somatic cell nuclear transfer. The science used to create Dolly applies to any mammal, and the arrival of Dolly made it clear that human beings would soon have to face the possibility of human cloning (Nusbaum and Sunstein 11). Motivated by profit and fame, scientists around the nation have been researching how to apply somatic cell nuclear transfer technology to humans. In response to this research Congress has been trying to draft legislation that will make the genetic cloning of a human illegal. Unfortunately, because of imprecise wording based on a shallow Congressional understanding of genetics, a ban on human cloning would inadvertently ban essential medical research that utilizes essential genetic cloning technologies. The term human cloning refers to a great number of technologies of which only somatic cell nuclear transfer can produce a living human being. Rather than an improperly worded ban on human cloning entirely, only genetic cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer should be banned while funding for other beneficial genetic cloning techniques should be increased.
The reason why Dolly had been so special has to do with the original cells that she had been cloned from. The mammary cells that had their genetic material removed are referred to as somatic cells. Somatic cells serve a specific function only, like a liver cell or a brain cell. Totipotent cells, on the other hand, have not yet become specific cells. Totipotent cells, like the cells in a fertilized embryo, give rise to somatic cells as the totipotent cells continuously divide, thereby creating the different somatic cells that formulate a fetal human being. During Dollys creation, Ian Wilmut and his team first removed the genetic material from a somatic cell and from a totipotent embryonic cell, and then ...

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