Cloning

    Mostly everyone knows what cloning is; movies and modern media have made sure of that. However, not everyone knows of a way it could be used in the modern world ethically. Human clones are the ones mostly seen in the media, but not anything that could be created ethically in real life.  one of the more gruesome ideas on how to use human clones would greatly expand class divide. If rich people could create clones for their children, then when their children got into a life-threatening condition, the clone’s parts could be used as a backup for everything from bone marrow to organs to even a heart replacement, as everything would be a perfect genetic match. 

One of the more dangerous parts of creating a medicine is the human testing stage. Of course, to get here, the drug must pass a critical and long overview, and even after that, it still needs to be approved by the FDA before it can be freely shared with the world. However, as we can see from the very long list of side effects mentioned in drug commercials, this does not mean that the drug is completely safe. It seems as though every drug has the possibility of leading to a person’s death. Clones could take the place of humans in clinical trials if we were able to make them the ‘perfect clone’, as mentioned before. This grows into a gray spot, however, from an ethical perspective because aren’t the clones humans as well? The age-old question, "What makes someone a human?" should be asked here. In my personal rendition of Theseus's ship, I ask, "What if you copied all the pieces of the ship and then rebuilt it? Would it still be the same ship?" If you copied the genome of a person and made a living copy of them, are they the same person? Does the clone qualify as human? It has all the same parts, thinks in the same way, and will die just as we do. When the baby grows up, however, will they have the same opinions as their counterpart? This becomes a question of nature vs. nurture. To go back to the medicine debate, clones could help save the lives lost or the lives forever changed by clinical testing, but only at the expense of themselves. This comes down to, of course, whether we consider clones to be human. What will be chosen when the first human clone is created?

Currently, cloning is happening in the world. But probably not the type of cloning you would think. Therapeutic cloning is a type of cloning that uses embryonic stem cells. These embryonic stem cells are taken from in-vitro embryos that were donated to scientific research with consent from the families they were made for. After being used, they are destroyed. These stem cells can be used for studying a disease and testing drugs.  They can also be used to reinforce dying organs, replace dying nerve cells, and so much more. Scientists are hopeful to be able to use them in regenerative therapy, where a destroyed part of the body is replaced or reinforced with new stem cells. Embryonic stem cells have the ability to transform into basically any type of cell, which allows them to be used in regenerative therapies. Scientists are also looking forward to when someone will figure out how to grow organs from these embryonic stem cells, creating perfect matches to those that need them. 

Organs seem to be the thing people think of when they want to use cloning technology in an ethical way. Xenotransplants are when someone gets a transplant from an animal- typically a pig or a primate. Today, it's not going too far to say people might soon be able to get an organ transplant from a pig. There are two ways to make pig organs safe for humans: by replacing the genes of a pig with human genes in their embryonic stage, or by removing the genes in a pig that promote different animal viruses and cancer. The biggest concern with xenotransplants is the transfer of pig viruses to humans through the transplant. In 2021, the first organ transplant from pig to human was conducted. On a brain-dead patient, with the family’s consent, doctors transferred a kidney from a pig that had been prepared (lacking in the genes that would make a body reject it) into the body of the patient, and it was a complete success. This shows the possibility of soon having a reliable source of organs for the thousands of people who need transplants. Though, of course, the problem with creating these thousands of organs inside of pigs would imply thousands of pounds of leftover meat and waste. Maybe pairing up with a farm would help mitigate that problem?