Q. What is cloning? Write the scientific merits and demerits of cloning. (43 BPSC/2001)

Q. What is cloning? Write the scientific merits and demerits of cloning. (43 BPSC/2001)

Ans: Cloning is the process of producing individuals with identical or virtually identical DNA, either naturally or artificially.

• In nature, many organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction. e.g. reproduction method used by plants, fungi, and bacteria, and is also the way that clonal colonies reproduce themselves.
• Cloning in biotechnology refers to the process of creating clones of organisms or copies of cells or DNA fragments (molecular cloning).

Merit:

• Genetic cloning is done to create a desired gene from DNA to ensure certain qualities.
• It helps infertile couples to bear children. e.g 3 parents baby.
• It has great contribution to organ replacement.
  • Genetic cloning allows scientists to take small amounts of cells from a certain organ and use them to generate and harvest new organs that are entirely functioning.
• It allows for growing eminent individuals.
  • Theoretically, someone like Martin Luther King Jr. or Albert Einstein can be brought back to life by cloning. This means we will be able to have such knowledgeable individuals to educate and help people in today’s world.
• Cure for Diseases.
• It naturally occurs in nature- by various plans, bacteria etc.
  • Parts of an individual plant may become detached by fragmentation and grow on to become separate clonal individuals. e.g. moss and liverwort gametophyte.
• Cloning are used in horticulture, and agriculture.
  • Grafting can be regarded as cloning, since all the shoots and branches coming from the graft are genetically a clone of a single individual.
  • Cloning high yielding varieties of seeds. 

Demerit:

• Critics say that it is morally inappropriate to manipulate nature.
• It comes with a degree of uncertainty as of yet. The repercussions and effects of cloning that remain unknown to date.
• It might lead to problems in organ rejection. There may be a substantial difference in the cell make-up between the original and replicated organ.
• It decreases gene diversity.
  • The ability of humans to live greatly relies on the diversity of genes, which comes from parents who have different sets of genes. One big disadvantage of identical genes is that they will weaken our adaptations and power, which can make us subjected to certain diseases easily.
• The beauty of humanity lies in the differences among individuals, and cloning ruins this.
• In-Breeding:
  • One of the most unfavorable consequences of cloning is in-breeding, where everyone will be having the same genotypes, which can keep reproducing among themselves. => sowing the seeds of our own destruction.
• One of the main drawbacks of cloning is that if the original organism has genetic defects:
  • Dolly the sheep, born to a surrogate in 1996, was a genetic copy of a six-year old sheep. Dolly only lived to six years old herself, the bottom end of a sheep’s average life expectancy.
• Unbalance to the Society: Many people think that it is ridiculous to separate reproduction from love and other human relationships, thus cloning would may arise social side effects.
• Can increase inquality in the society.
• the risk of being abused: e.g. imagine what a corrupt dictator could do with cloning.

Today, it is done in the real world and is one of the most controversial topics within the medical and scientific communities. There is need for better regulation so that it’s negative impact can be avoided.