| This contest is fueled by the following news: |
| | The Food and Drug Administration published the new report concluding that food from cloned animals or their offspring were as safe as conventional food. Even though the FDA still considers ethical concerns on animal cloning, the report may help clear the way for the "cloned food" to the grocery shelves as early as next year.
The name “cloning” has been transferred to the technology of identical organisms reception itself, which is known as kernel replacement, and then on all organisms which were made by such technology from the first tadpoles to the sheep Dolly.
Already at the end of the 20th century, talking about the possibility of the same technology application for the reception of genetically identical human individuals has started - the cloning of the human. The term has ceased to be the property of the scientific community, it was picked up by the mass-media, cinematography, literature, by manufacturers of computer games and it has entered into the language as a common word, which is doesn't have the special meaning which it possessed about hundred years ago.
The vegetative reproduction of plants is a reproduction by a shoot, a root, or a grafting that means “without pollination”.
Cloning of bacteria:
For bacteria cloning is only way of reproduction. However, usually, when they speak about bacteria cloning, they mean intentional reproduction of any bacterium, cultivation of its clone, culture.
Cloning in nature of the developed organisms is a unique way of reproduction in wildlife. One kind of natural cloning is known only and is the reproduction of a small fiery ant (Wasmannia auropunctata), the males and females of this kind breed without coupling.
Molecular cloning:
Thanks to the fundamental biological discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries, namely: the discovery of the cellular structure of tissues, the invention of an electronic microscope, the discovery of the structure of a karyon, chromosomes, DNA, genes, - it is possible to do molecular cloning. It is a technology of cloning the least biological objects - molecules of DNA, their parts and even separate genes. Such cloning is necessary for studying of small biological objects, their identification, and the solution of questions of tissues cloning.
The cloning of multi-cellular organisms:
The greatest attention of scientists and the public involves the cloning of multi-cellular organisms which became possible thanks to the successes of genetic engineering.
Creating special conditions and interfering in the structure of the karyon experts make it to develop the necessary tissue or even in the whole, in advance a planned organism. And there were opened not only methods of reproduction of that organism, from which the cell was taken, but also of the reproduction of another organism - from what the genetic material was taken only. There was a basic possibility of reproduction from the dead organism. And even then, when from the dead organism the minimum parts remained - it is possible to extract a genetic material from them only.
There is full and partial cloning of organisms. At full cloning the whole organism is recreated entirely, at partial cloning the organism is recreated partially. For example, only separate tissues are recreated. One of perspective applications of tissue cloning is medical cellular therapy. Such cells could compensate a lack and defects of the tissues of an organism and they are not rejected at transplantation. This is so-called reproductive and therapeutic cloning.
Reproductive cloning assumes that as a result of cloning the whole organism turns out. Except for the scientific purposes it can be applied to the reconstitution of vanished species or the preservation of rare species, etc.
Therapeutic cloning assumes that as a result of cloning the whole organism doesn’t turn out intentionally. Its development is stopped in advance, and new cells can be used for the development of the necessary tissues or other biological products. Experiments show, that therapeutic cloning can be applied with success to the treatment of some diseases which are considered incurable.
Cloning in society:
In 2007 Queen Elizabeth II conferred a Knight title on Ian Wilmut, one of the creators of the sheep Dolly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
