And on the fifth day, the Lord said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:23

It seems that the human race is not so far off from God these days. It is now 'the fifth day', here and now. Like it or not, aside from all moral objections, cloning is here. Back in 1997 scientists began 'playing god' and created Dolly, the world's first successfully cloned adult mammal. The public reaction, both religious and social was so strong that President Clinton issued an executive order soon after which enacted a five-year ban on the use of federal monies for research into human cloning. This pacified the debate somewhat and eventually it fell largely out of public interest. Meanwhile, behind the media curtain, science has made leaps and bounds in the process of cloning. The technology has come so far that dairy products and T-bone steaks from herds of cloned cattle are only a blink of an eye away. In fact, a small herd of cloned cattle based in the dairy land of Wisconsin has just been brought into milk production. China will give unveil its first cloned bovine in January of 2002 and an Australian-New Zealand company, Clone International has it's sights set on an interesting market niche...cloning high-quality, elite animals for sale, export and a sort of living insurance policy for certain highly valued animals. The company's first clone will be born in a month or so and others are due to be born each month from then on.

How does all of this cloning work? Cloning is the process of using artificial means to replicate an organism without the use of sexual procreation. The method currently employed is called "nuclear transfer" which utilizes fusion instead of fertilization to create the new organism. Nuclear transfer consists of removing the nucleus of an unfertilized egg and replacing it with the nucleus of a somatic cell from the organism to be cloned. Then, technicians apply a small electric pulse to stimulate the newly constructed cell, forcing it into the cell division process, thus beginning the development of the newly cloned organism. The technology used to clone Dolly was purchased by Geron Corp., a biopharmaceutical giant, in 1999 from Scotland's Roslin Institute, is licensed to only a few other companies in the United States and Britain, including the aforementioned Cloning International.

Many scientists claim that cloning a human would be "technically easier" than cloning other mammals because humans have a specific genetic trait that prevents a deformity common in cloned organisms. The Duke University Medical Center has found during some recent research that, unlike animals, humans possess a genetic "benefit" that prevents a deformity known as 'large offspring syndrome' or fetal overgrowth. Oversized fetuses and other birth deformities have occurred in many attempts at animal cloning. These deformities are among the reasons that many object to similar trials being carried out on humans. According to the Duke University study, which used the latest gene mapping technology, humans and other primates have two activated copies of a special gene, IGF2R (Insulin-like Growth Factor-11 Receptor). Humanoid offspring receive one copy of IGF2R from each parent, but most animals only receive one copy total because of a process known as genomic imprinting, which renders the second copy inactive.

So, how far away is actual human cloning? That's tough to say exactly, but it may be much closer than we think. Earlier this month, a pair of scientists announced plans to produce the first cloned human before the end of the year 2002. The group led by Severino Antinori, an Italian fertility specialist, and his colleague Panos Zavos of the Andrology Institute in Kentucky exposed their plans to begin trials with 200 couples beginning in November of this year.

One thing is for sure though, the benefits of cloning would indeed benefit all of mankind. Cloning animals could provide great benefits especially in the fields of food production and medicine. Cloning opens the possibility to produce animals that are genetically designed to be healthier, larger and produce greater yields. The same affect is already accomplished in regards to chickens and livestock by injecting them with hormones and enzymes or strictly controlling their diet and intake, but these techniques are far from being perfect as there are still many factors that cannot be controlled in any other manner than on the genetic front.

Human cloning could help resolve fertility complications that millions of men and women experience across the world. And if and when the process advances far enough, organs needed in the case of transplants would be readily available, saving many human lives. If the process goes as far as to clone organs based on the actual recipient's genetic material then there would likely be a reduced chance of rejection because the donor organ would an exact healthy copy of the recipient's organs. Hundreds of thousands of people wait and wait for an organ to become available for transplant. Many die during that wait. And those that do survive the wait still have a chance that their body will reject the organ.

This is the part where you expect me to present the counterpoint to the issue and serve up the usual moral arguments about man playing God and treating human life as an object. Well forget about it. I don't swing from side to side, I don't play the Devil's advocate and I don't offer up arguments just for sake of being politically correct. You want politically correct, turn on CNN or read the newspaper. These are my thoughts and information on the matter, and that's what this column is about. I'm not going to rehash everything I read in every scientific journal or textbook just for your educational benefit. Here, in this column, you get the facts, the fantasy and the final thoughts of a self prescribed heathen and an obsessively educated social miscreant with an affinity for pyromania and a flair for the dramatic.

If you don't like the idea of cloning then you're in for a long life, because it WILL be accomplished during your lifetime. And regardless of whether or not you think it's a good idea or morally acceptable, millions of people will benefit from this technology in the near future. Next time you think about how wrong it is to clone, take a walk through the wings of your local hospital where people are waiting to die because there's such a long hold for an organ donor. Or maybe you should just stroll on by the Cancer ward and take a look at those poor souls that are waiting for a cure for the disease that strikes so many every year. Do you know where we'd be as far as a cure for Cancer without genetic research? We'd still be in the 1700's with no potential cure in sight. Now, we're making leaps and bounds every day and cloning technology will allow us to multiply our progress tenfold. Even then, if that doesn't do it, take a trip to Africa or some third-world country and look right into the eyes of the thousands of starving children and tell them that they have no right to this research and fruits born from it because your conscience or your god, a god they may have never even heard of, says that it's morally wrong. Do you think these people care, let alone even understand the concepts of your morals? All they understand is that they're dying slowly without end in sight. Science moves in the direction to aid and progress humanity, even if it sometimes stands in direct opposition to the ethics of the majority or the principles of the minority. Regardless of moral or social objection, science continuously forges upward and onward, searching for that perfect balance between humanity and God...searching for that 'Fifth Day'.



And on that fifth day, man said, let our progress bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, beast of the earth, every creeping thing, and also man after his kind: and it was so. And man made man after his kind, and the beast of the earth and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and man saw that it was good. And man said, Let us make God in our image, after our likeness: and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So man created God in his own image, and man saw that it was good...

 

This is a weekly column that will revolve around various science and technology issues as well as the social and moral implications associated with them. Please feel free to send me your ideas and topics for discussion. Also, starting next week, I will be adding a feature to the column where you, the reader, will be able to submit your own questions in an attempt to stump me for an answer. These can be riddles, scientific questions or just about anything really. If I cannot answer the question and provide proof for my answer, then you win a prize.