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Erörterung
Ingenieurwissenschaft

Hong Kong Polytechnic University - PolyU HK

2015

Nadia C. ©
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Class: ELC1014S13SEM005

Assessment Task: 2

Research Question/Title: Is cloning technology beneficial to today’s society?

Referencing Style: APA


Is cloning technology beneficial to today’s society?


Cloning technology is an engineering technique to create “a cell or individual that is genetically identical to another cell or individual” (Nash, 2002, p. 279). Since the emergence of the first cloned sheep, Dolly in 1996, cloning has been highly debated among scholars, scientists and doctors all over the world (Sevanthinathan, 2007).

The discussion among scientists focuses on whether cloning a human is practicable in order to help childless couples (Pickrell, 2001). Physicians who support cloning technology mainly highlight the applications of it in terms of organ transplantation (Koh & Atala, 2004).

Veterinarians who uphold cloning technology believe that it can rescue endangered species, while people who oppose it question the ethical controversy arising from human cloning and doubt whether it should be allowed (Hare, 2003).This essay focuses on cloning human, therapeutic and animal cloning despite there have been disputes from human cloning.

By briefly discussing the advantages of cloning technology from medical, ecological and economic perspectives, it supports the view that cloning technology is beneficial to today’s society.


From the medical perspective, one of the benefits of cloning technology is that it can help for organ replacement for patients whose organs are impaired. Chan (2002) asserts that only very few patients obtain organs for transplantation and the average waiting time for organs has been too long.

Tong, Koo and Cheng (2010) maintain that there is a decrease in organ donors in Hong Kong. According to Hong Kong Hospital Authority (2014), the number of organs donated only satisfies 19% of patients who are waiting for transplantation.This shows that donor organs which are available for transplantationare severely insufficient and it is urgent to develop ways to solve this problem.

Cloning technology provides an alternative for patients to have organ replacement. With the help of animal cloning, cloning technology can produce more animals’ organs for xenotransplantation (Hare, 2003), which is defined as “the transplantation of living organs, tissues, or cells from one species to another”.

Some patients were transplanted chimpanzees kidneys and survived for nine months (Boneva, Folks and Chapman, 2001, p. 1). Kaiser (2002) discovers cloned pigs help to surmount organ rejection which greatly increases the success rate of xenotransplantation from pigs to humans.

Apart from animal cloning, therapeutic cloning can duplicate human organs for transplantation. Koh and Atala (2004) successfully cloned some organs such as cardiac muscle and kidneys from therapeutic cloning. The cloned organs were completely immune-compatible because they were genetically the same as that of organ receivers that higher chance of successful organ transplantation can be obtained.

There will be rising replicated organs transplanted successfully with the advancement of technology. Therefore, using cloning technology to replicate organs can shorten the waiting time for organ replacement and reduce the number of deaths due to insufficient supply of organs.


Another advantage of cloning technology from the medical perspective is assistance for childless couples to have babies. Some couples cannot have children because of their sterility.

Cloning technology is a way to defeat their infertility by cloning human, sperms or eggs. Some scientists are planning to clone the first human to help childless couples. They consider cloning as the last frontier for infertile couples to have children and maintain that there are around 600 sterile couples waiting for possessing their own sons or daughters.

Infertile men and women can have cloned sperms used and eggs for conception respectively.Orentlicher (2001) affirms that sterile couples can have identical reproductive opportunities to fertile couples and offspring who own the same genes. He also believes that cloning sperms or eggs may eventually be recognized as valid as it assists barren males and females to give birth with no sperm or egg donors.

Hence, cloning technology can give hope to infertile couples to have babies.


From the ecological perspective, cloning technology can rescue endangered species. As some people disregard the nature and are not aware of the conservation of it, they casually utilize technology to obliterate other species.

Cloning technology can create new animals at a faster pace. Loi et al. (2001) successfully cloned a wild endangered animal, mouflon and observed that there was no apparent abnormality in it. This success supports cloning technology can enlarge seriously endangered species in the world.

Another example of cloning rare mammals was the cloned gaur, but it only had a short lifetime (Vogel, 2001). Although there is little success in cloning scarce creatures, continuous attempts and advanced cloning technology can genetically duplicate and save animals in danger of extinction.

Consequently, the biodiversity and food chain can be maintained at a higher level by means of cloning technology.


Yang et al. (2007) revealed that roughly 1200-1500 cows created by cloning technology and their meat and dairy products were brought into the food supply. Many people question the safety and edibility of cloned food or food from cloned animals. Houdebine (2008) argues that meats and food products such as milk from clonal animals are about the same as real animals and no food safety problems for these products.

He investigated foodstuffs from cloned animals like cows and pigs are within the normal range, which is compared to traditional food. Food and Drug Administration announced that food produced from cloning techniques is as safe as food obtained from conventional processes and can be consumed and vended (Miller, 2008).


Based on the arguments and evaluations above, it is concluded that cloning technology is beneficial to today’s society. There is evidence to show that cloning technology can help patients whose organs are impaired to have organ transplantation and assist infertile couples to have offspring.

It can also save rare species and increase the food supply in the world. Consequently, scientists and experts are advised to proceed with the investigation and attempts of cloning. This can make cloning technology become more advanced and reliable use. Although reasonable evidence of cloned food is safe has been presented in the limited number of individual studies in academic journals and reports, further and more comprehensive research is needed in the future to determine the number of species and foods produced from cloning and specify them which are harmless to eat.

References


Boneva, R. S., Folks, T. M., & Chapman, L. E. (2001). Infectious disease issues in xenotransplantation. Clinical Microbiology Reviews, 14(1), p. 1.


Chan, T. M. (2002). Donor shortage in organ transplantation: perspective from Hong Kong. Transplantation proceedings, 34(7), pp. 2558 -2559.


Global Harvest Initiative. (2014). 2014 GAP Report® | Global Harvest Initiative. Retrieved from


Hare, D. (2003).
What of animal cloning?
The Canadian Veterinary Journal, 44(4), 271-272.


Hong Kong Hospital Authority. (2014). Organ donation - Statistics (Milestones of Hong Kong organ transplantation). Retrieved from


Houdebine, L. (2008). Animal cloning for food: Epigenetics, health, welfare and food safety aspects. Trends in Food Science & Technology,19, pp. 88-95.



Koh, C. & Atala, A. (2004). Therapeutic cloning applications for organ transplantation. Transplant Immunology,12(3), 193-201.


Loi, P., Ptak, G., Barboni, B., Fulka, J., Cappai, P., & Clinton, M. (2001). Genetic rescue of an endangered mammal by cross-species nuclear transfer using post-mortem somatic cells. Nature biotechnology, 19(10), p. 962.


Miller, H. I. (2008). Fear and cloning. Regulation, 31(2), p. 5.


Nash, D. (2002). Recommended response for human cloning patent applications. IDEA: The Journal of Law and Technology, 42(2), p. 279.


Orentlicher, D. (2001). Beyond cloning: Expanding reproductive options for same-sex couples. Brooklyn Law Review, 66, pp. 651-1339.



Sevanthinathan, P. (2007). Heavy regulation of human cloning as an alternative to a complete ban. Quinnipiac Health Law Journal, 10, pp. 219-279.


Stewart, M. (2001). Cloning hit or miss? Science World, 57(12), p. 8.


Tong, Y. F., Koo, J., & Cheng, B. (2010). Review of organ donation in Hong Kong: 1996-2009. Hong Kong Journal of Nephrology, 12(2), pp. 62-73.


Vogel, G. (2001). Endangered species. Cloned gaur a short-lived success. Science, 291(5503), p. 409.


Yang, X., Tian, X. C., Kubota, C., Page, R., Xu, J., & Cibelli, J. (2007). Risk assessment of meat and milk from cloned animals. Nature Biotechnology, 25(1), pp. 77-83.



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