Essay: Reproductive Cloning

In reproductive cloning, a mature somatic cell (like a skin cell) is removed the the animal that is being cloned, the DNA is transferred into an egg cell or oocyte that had its nucleus removed. The dna from the somatic cell can be added to the empty egg in two ways, the first method they removed the nucleus of the somatic cell with a needle and inject it into the egg or the entire somatic cell can be fused to the empty egg using electrical current. In both processes, the egg is allowed to develop into an early-stage embryo in a test-tube and then is implanted into the womb of an adult female animal.
Therapeutic cloning
Therapeutic cloning’s process is very similar to reproductive cloning where the dna of a somatic cell from the animal being cloned is implanted into an emptied egg of a donor animal where they can fuse together and undergo cell division. But instead of the embryo being implanted into a surrogate animal, the stem cells (which are cells that are undifferentiated and have the ability to specialize into any type of cell) are extracted from the embryo for medical research. The embryo is then destroyed
Gene cloning
The process for gene cloning is unlike the other two, when a specific gene in dna is to be cloned the target gene is cut it out of the dna using restriction enzymes (is a DNA-cutting enzyme that recognizes a specific target sequence and cuts DNA into two pieces ) the cut gene segment and a plasmid ( a circular piece of DNA) are combined with DNA ligase, which links them to make a recombinant plasmid containing the gene. the plasmid is introduced into a bacteria, E coli, for example, by a process called transformation, where specially prepared bacterial cells are given a heat shock that encourages them to take up the foreign DNA.bacteria carrying the plasmid are selected using antibiotics.As the selected bacteria reproduce, they replicate the plasmid and pass it onto their offspring, making copies of the DNA it contains, the plasmid containing the target gene is then separated from the bacteria’s DNA and is purified.
Advantages
Endangered species: captive breeding programs can be used to help save endangered species and increase their populations. And scientists are experimenting with cloning of extinct animals as well.
Helpful to medical research and clinical trials:
Much of what researchers learn about human disease comes from studying animal models such as mice. Often, animal models are genetically engineered to carry disease-causing mutations in their genes but Creating these transgenic animals is a time consuming and requires trial-and-error and several generations of breeding. Cloning could help reduce the time needed to make a transgenic animal models, and the result would be a population of genetically identical animals for study.
And stem cells cloned from someone with a disease could be grown in culture and studied to help researchers understand the disease and develop treatments.
Plant cloning:
Animals are not the only living things that can be cloned, Plants can be cloned on a massive scale to improve the production and quality of crop plants,
Cures diseases
Scientists believe that embryonic stem cell research will lead to cures for many diseases and will provide tissues and organs for transplant and treatment of degenerative conditions.
cloning has been used to create stem cells which could cure diabetes by triggering insulin production.
Because the stem cells are made using a patient’s own skin cells, the engineered cells for replacement therapy would matching the patient’s DNA and so the likelihood of rejection is considerably lowered.
It is hoped that in the future, stem cell therapy could be used for a wide range of conditions including Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis, and liver diseases and for replacing or repairing damaged bones.