Challenges to Biomedical Research- Cloning

Evaluate therapeutic vs. reproductive cloning

History Of Cloning Dolly the sheep - First cloned mammal in 1997 Very few scientists believe human cloning (called reproductive cloning) should be permitted.

History Of Cloning Most medical scientists support and are in favor of therapeutic (beneficial) cloning. The procedure used to produce embryonic or adult stem cells that, theoretically, can be used to treat diseases.

Reproductive Clone? Clone = precise genetic copy. Reproductive cloning is really somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

Therapeutic Clone In therapeutic cloning, the embryo is not placed in a surrogate, but rather, undergoes cell division in the lab until it reaches a specific (blastocyst) stage. Today adult cells are ‘tricked’ into being stem cells.

Obstacles to Reproductive Cloning Using Animals The Success rate is very low Vast majority of problems occur during fetal development. Additional problems show up after birth and years later.

Obstacles to Reproductive Cloning Using Animals “Large Offspring Syndrome”- Cloned newborns 20-30% larger than usual, making it hard to deliver unborn babies.

Status of Human Reproductive Cloning in the World There is NO evidence of successful human cloning in the world.

Stem Cells Adult Stem Cells are undifferentiated somatic cells, found throughout the body after embryonic development, that multiply by cell division to replenish dying cells and regenerate damaged tissues.

Embryonic vs iPS Cells The purpose of performing stem cell research is to develop new and better ways to treat disease. Embryonic stem cells come from a fertilized egg. iPS (induced pluripotent stem cells) are cells that are created from adult somatic cells. This is an effective replacement to embryonic stem cells.

Why are Stem Cells so important to Medical Researchers? They are important to medical researchers because they are needed to create perfectly matched tissues to treat an individual disease or disorder.

When would someone need an adult stem cell transfusion? When radiation treatment for Cancer has destroyed the patient’s stem cells. When antibiotics are no longer successful in fighting infection. When a person is severely anemic as a result of gastrointestinal bleeding.

Differences Between… Reproductive Cloning: Therapeutic Cloning: The Goal of this is to create a new organism, human or other animal. Therapeutic Cloning: The goal of this is to produce stem cells.

Embryonic and Adult Stem Cells Totipotent – fertilized egg, can become anything including placenta. Pluripotent – same as embryonic, becomes embryo, eventually fetus, baby Multipotent – Adult stem cells have gone through specialization and limited to types of cells. Example the blood stem cells in bone marrow – blood. Umbiblical cords have multipotent for blood stem cells.

Creation of embryonic stem cells does use fertilized egg. This made it controversial. Shinya Yamanaka transformed the cell war and made everyone a winner!

Thanks to research, we can create/induce stem cells! The real advantage: They permit the production of perfect-match tissue. iPS “induced pluripotent stem cells” So, we can potentially take a somatic cell and give it the potential to regenerate and heal tissues in our own body! Ex: using fat cells to become healing stem cells!