The Trouble With Genes

Posted by Joanna Karpasea-Jones Jul 27, 2007

The cloning of animals began in the UK in 1995 when scientists cloned 2 sheep using embryonic cells. They created Megan and Morag, who were genetically identical to each other.

Dolly the sheep was the first cloned sheep to be made using adult cells, rather than embryonic ones. She was born on 5 July 1996 to a media fury.

Dolly sadly died a rather early death on Valentine's Day 2003, of lung failure, which raised further questions over the safety of cloning. (Sheep normally live about 12 years if allowed to live out their natural lives).

Because Dolly's DNA came from a 6 year old sheep, scientists thought that she may die earlier, as she was essentially born as a 6 year old. As well as her lung disease, she suffered from arthritis. Those involved in the research are divided as to whether cloning caused her problems. Some of her offspring were also born with deformities.

It is already known that babies born by standard IVF have a higher rate of genetic abnormalities and premature birth. Studies have shown that a large number of embryos created from donated eggs, have chromasomal abnormalities (according to New Scientist, 18 October 2005).

The first baby to be born via IVF was Louise Brown, in 1978. The first child to be born after being frozen as an embryo, is only about 13 years old now and the first baby born which was created using a frozen egg, was only born in 2001.

The public can be confident that children born by standard IVF can grow into healthy adults, as Louise did, but we have less information on frozen embryos. The children aren't old enough to have followed them scientifically so we have no idea what the long term implications are.

Cloning of the human genome is another grey area. With so many animals born with abnormalities, how can we be sure that future babies born by this method will be healthy, even if they appear healthy at birth?

Ian Wilmut, the scientist who led the team that created Dolly, has always been against human cloning. We definitely need a long-term study to determine the safety of cloning techniques for infertility problems, before they are used as treatments, or we could be unleashing a disaster.