Le coin des amatheurs de sciences version 2 
The sections of the site : The site 
FORUM The space The genetics Medicine Physics Tintin and science Ecology - Nuclear energy Mysteries of the history Humour Diverse
Le coin des amatheurs de sciences version 2
The sections of the site : The site FORUM The space The genetics Medicine Physics Tintin and science Ecology - Nuclear energy Mysteries of the history Humour Diverse
Cloning. The word makes fear. Because it authorizes one of worst handling than the sorcerer's apprentices of the genetics can imagine : the manufacture of human beings to the chain. Actually, this technique is the result of almost one century of research aiming at improving the animals and the plants. The first industrial applications wake up already the appetite of the investors, who expect colossal benefit from them. But they cause also the fear which the XXIst century is not invaded of herds transformed into pharmacies on legs, in a world where the women will be able to give birth to their own clones... Arguments in favor and against...
History of the cloning
1791 : The English doctor John Hunter practises the first pregnancy by insemination artificial.
1878 : First animal artificial insemination in laboratory.
1938 : A Nazi scientist proposes to replace the core of an ovule by that of another ovule.
1944 : First tests of in vitro human fertilization.
1951 : First transfer of embryo of a cow to another.
1952 : Birth of a calf starting from frozen sperm. Attempt at frog cloning.
1953 : First human artificial insemination starting from frozen sperm.
1963 : First in vitro fertilization successful in the hamster.
1973 : At the university of Cambridge, a researcher replaces the core of an ovule of splashes by that of another. The experiment misses.
1976 : The first decoding of a sequence of human embarrassment
1977 : First production of human proteins by bacteria.
1978 : Birth in the United Kingdom of Louise Brown, the first baby-test-tube.
1981 : Total control of the in vitro fertilization.
1983 : First transgenic tobacco. A woman is confined of a baby whose embryo was obtained starting from her husband's sperm and of an ovule of another woman.
1984 : Birth in Australia of Zoe, the first baby resulting from a frozen embryo.
1986 : Cloning of sheep starting from embryonic cells.
1990 : In Italy, a woman in menopause is confined.
1993 : First attempt at cloning of human embryo in the United States.
1994 : In the United States professor First gives birth to four clone-calves from one frozen embryo.
1996 : Birth in the United States of the first clone-monkeys starting from embryonic cells
1997 : Birth of Dolly on February, 23th
2000 : Researchers shelled put at the world in Missouri of mini transgenic clone pigs : it was known for a long time that like the monkey, the pig has a common ancestor with the man but the xenogreffes did not function bus the pigs developed a gene which we don't have and they produced thus proteins causing the rejection of grafted fabrics. These researchers succeeded with to eliminate this gene, which makes the xenogreffe possible.
2003 : Following a pulmonary disease, Dolly has been killed on February 14th. So, it died when it was seven, whereas the normal death is at fourteen. Dolly is now exposed in the National Museum of Scotland.
2005 : In May, a south-korean team directed by Woo Suk Hwang announced that it cloned 11 groups of human cells. In August, the same team succeeds cloning a dog. A few months later, results are critized. Hwang admits that he cheated : he didn't suceed in the cloning of human cells. The dog's cloning is real.
Arguments in favor of the cloning
The cloning is the key many current problems. After the scandal of Dolly's birth, the researchers wondered about the openings that could bring to nature. Betsy Dresser, a specialist in animal physiology in New-Orleans east in the beginning in the birth in Jazz, a wild she-cat of Africa carried by a domestic she-cat. It is this first profitable experiment which gave him the hope bus beyond the technical prowess, this happy event opens new prospects with all the endangered species. Many projects are under development and the researchers of Aicres announced that they could save some 40 threatened species like the bongos, some species of panthers...
The cloning is of other interests: indeed, it can be used for the improvement of the animals by selection (producing large cows of milk for example) but also for the rebirth of species disappeared starting from samples from DNA (it is the bet of the researchers of Australian Museum with the tiger of Tasmanie).
Associated the transgenism, the cloning can also prove to be invaluable in the experimentation of new treatments not on the man but on animals having received embarrassments human ; in particular in research on cancer or the vaccines. Why let us employ not the cloning with the fine therapeutic ones ? It would be a chance for many patients. However, only Great Britain is not hostile with the principle of the techniques of cloning when research relates to the treatment of the serious hereditary diseases. Joe Tsien understands the recent anguishes badly that the prospect for the human cloning bus was going to give birth to according to him, a clone as a copy confirms does not bring anything original to the world. Professor Jacob estimates that the technique will support a better comprehension of sterilities and cancer because a cancerous cell is an undifferentiated cell. That's why the scientists launch out in the cloning of cells. That leaves a possibility for the sterile couples which could have children. According to Lee Silven, the human cloning is not dangerous if the couples have recourse there to have children whom they will cherish and if these children are in good health.
For the moment, one speaks much about animal cells which one would establish at the man (xenogreffes) but the cloning of human cells, although already realized, remains a taboo because there remains a real ethical barrier.
Arguments against the cloning
The first opposition to the cloning is religious : in the great current worships, only God can give the life. That which would seize this power would cause divine anger. With the cloning, the man would be caught for God. It is the fault of pride in ancient Greece, it is the myth of Frankenstein.
Moreover, it is impossible to say if a clone is compared to its original his son, his brother or even another thing. It is thus the end of the paternal laws and of prohibited on the inceste. For some, the future of our company is even threatened. In the same idea, a clone is neither its original nor somebody of other, it brings confusion. The idea even of otherness, i.e. any alive being is different, is abolished.
Then, the girls are lower than the boys in many cultures. The fact of being able to determine in advance the sex of a child thus involved solid masses abortions. Thus, echography had serious but unforeseeable consequences. The cloning could make well in the same way... Same manner, the relative of a clone would tend « to condition » his child so that it becomes what it could not be in order to live again through his child. Can a child grow normally when it knows that it is not the fruit of a natural reproduction but of a technique of laboratory ?
Moreover, two species could emerge in a distant future: the young people resulting easy families are always favoured: they are educated better, followed better médicalement... The enormous gap between rich person and the poor primarily holds so that the parents can make or not for their children. Thus, richest could equip their children with connections spermatozoon-ovule modified to prevent them from procreating with others. One would thus create two mankind unable to cross.
To answer those which advance that the cloning would make reappear of the personalities or the geniuses, that is actually impossible : a clone has the same biological characteristics as its original but a character and knowledge cannot be copied : they are not innate but are the fruit of the meetings, education, of the experiment...
Lastly, the risk is too important: to obtain Dolly, one needed 277 tests including 276 failures. Can we sacrifice 300 foetuses to obtain a human clone ?
Cloning and economy
The purpose of the cloning of the sheep is not the proliferation of the sheep, already rather many, but it aims at showing that the biotechnologiques companies are able to control the complex techniques of manufacture of pharmaceutical products of animal origin. This cloning, in itself, is of an economic interest no one. However, which attracts the industrialists, it is the insurance large future benefit.
The purse and biotechnologies were made to meet: the first is the place where investors take bets on the future, the second generates inventions which put good ten years before reaching the stage of the marketing. Rather than to count on hypothetical public budgets, laboriously renewed year by year, the researchers quickly understood that the purse could finance them for a long time non-returnable... provided that their research is directed towards very concrete outlets.
The investors, persuaded that SME (small and medium-sized undertakings) specialized in biotechnologies are the eldorado of XXIe century, misent fortunes above. « bio-speculation » is with its roof.
The money of the purse especially makes it possible to save time. A race speed is committed so that each company imposes its technology. the financing of genetic research of pharmaceutical use often proceeds in three stages:
- Of the researchers creates SME
- They are made dimension out of purse to finance their work.
- They « marry » with a giant of the chemistry which will have to pay at the full price the marketing of their new drug.
This financing raises criticisms : « One privileges the industrial research to the detriment of fundamental research. One goes towards a funnel of the knowledge ! » denounces a researcher of the INRA.
And UNO ?
UNO had to come to a conclusion about the cloning. It was expected that a convention is written and voted on November 29, 2004. But since 2001, sixty country (the United States at the head) block : they want to prohibit in more of the reproductive cloning the therapeutic cloning. At the last time, the vote was cancelled, replaced by a compromise : instead of a convention, UNO has published in February 2005 a declaration. The difference ? It doesn't have a legal value, it is there only for council. Favour : each country is free to legislate according to its manner. Disadvantage : the absence of an international legislation largely supports illegal research, like those of Raël.
Personal conclusion
Personally, you perhaps have understood it, I am absolutely against the reproductif cloning, because it acts of a company certainly invented by the man but who can easily exceed it.
With the end of the year 2002, the very dangerous sect of Raël, helped by the french scientist Brigitte Boisselier, announced the birth of Eve, the first human clone. The following events showed that this information was false, and that the raëliens wanted simply to make bead them.
However, it is not pessimistic but realistic to think that they will carry out soon live tests, if they did not already do it in hiding-place. And the day when they will announce the birth of a clone which will be it really, then that will have to be remembered: the chances that a clone-baby is viable are very weak. One thus needs hundreds of failures before the success. If someday the sect shows a clone, how many foetus will it have « killed » ?
