[This post is my entry for #donaldmarshall contest. The topic is very much important and I have to write it with a certain background so I've planned not to write it in one go rather it would be in a series form where I cover The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of cloning in three separate posts with a special reference to Donald Marshall.]

The Good

"[Science] is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything." — Carl Sagan

What's Cloning?

According to Collins English Dictionary, "Cloning is the process of making an identical copy of an organism or cell."

Types of Cloning

There are two types of cloning:

• Asexual Reproduction
• Artificial Cloning

Asexual Reproduction

Asexual reproduction is the natural process that is found in some uni-cellular organisms and allows them to produce identical offsprings. This process does not require two cells with different genotype (sexual reproduction). The uni-cellular organism that could be bacteria, fungi, animal or some plant goes through Mitosis and produces new cells using its DNA. Asexual reproduction causes cloning in three ways:

• Binary Fission
• Fragmentation
• Budding
  [I won't go in detail for these types as that's off-topic].

Artificial Cloning

Artificial cloning as obvious from its name does not happen naturally rather takes place in labs. There are three ways/methods/types of artificial cloning:

• Gene Cloning
• Therapeutic Cloning
• Reproductive Cloning

Source

Gene Cloning

Gene cloning is the process that helps produce copies of genes or segments of DNA.

Therapeutic Cloning

This is also called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer because in layman's terms this type of cloning is all about substitution of nucleus. Typically, this is aimed at treating damaged or infected tissues with the help of embryonic stem cells.

Reproductive Cloning

This type of cloning produces copies of whole individuals. Human cloning comes under this type of cloning. From the first identical mice cloned back in 1979 to Dolly, the sheep that was cloned in 1996, scientists have successfully cloned different animals including cows, pigs, goats, horses, camels, cats and list goes on. Since Dolly, the sheep was cloned, scientists have cloned 23 mammals. However, cloning primates has been a real challenge for them until Chinese Scientists successfully cloned Hua Hua and Zhong Zhong at the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. Over 70 embryos and 21 surrogate mothers were part of this experiment. Only six pregnancies resulted out of which just two macaques were born. The cost to produce each macaque was $50,000.

Image Source: Google

Is Human Cloning A Reality?

Despite many claims about human cloning, the mainstream media is of the view that there is not a single evidence of human cloning found till date. They believe even the successful cloning of crab-eating long tailed macaque monkeys is far from creating older monkeys. However, as we know the media cultivates the reality and seeing is believing. There is agenda setting technique involved and the powerful want us to believe what favors them.

Image source: Quora

If you do a little research online, you will find tons of articles claiming primate cloning to be impossible until the Chinese scientists proved them wrong. Now the point is they used the same information that was required to clone Dolly the sheep. The ethical boundaries and the huge cost have been two main factors to do such experimental research. How much this experimental research would have taken if cost and ethical boundaries had not been any concerns? I'm not saying that richest people of the world do such kind of things. I'm just trying to explain my viewpoint with an assumption here. This is a bitter reality that there are a few richest people that have more money than rest of the world. The cost for a single crab eating cloned monkey was $50,000 and obviously it's a huge cost but for whom?

So, we're assuming here that human cloning is a reality. I'll discuss it's bad and ugly side in 2nd and 3rd posts of this series. Right now, I'll put some light on the key benefits of human claiming as mentioned by its supporters.

Benefits of Human Cloning

Following are the points that support human cloning:

• Infertile couples would be able to have children with the help of human cloning.
• Human cloning also allows organ harvesting that alternatively is done after waiting for a donor. If you don't get a donor, you won't survive.
• Bringing deceased loved ones back is possible through human cloning.
  -If we can bring back deceased loved ones back through human cloning, we can also bring back the famous humans of their times who helped this world with their unique gifts and thus solved its problems.
• Birth abnormalities can be corrected through human cloning.
• A prolonged life is possible if we replace the aging cells with the younger ones through human cloning.

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Coming next is the bad side of human cloning. So stay hooked.

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