The first cloned human was born. What should you remember before cloning yourself? Is it possible to clone a human now

You live in a world where you can clone animals, flirt with virtual girls and play with robot dolls that are increasingly difficult to distinguish from a human. Returning home one day with a gift for your daughter, you will find a copy of yourself. Your clone who took your place and took your life. If the first sentence is quite consistent with reality, then the next ones are the plot of the film "6th Day" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do you feel how this line between reality and fantasy oozes?

Short. What is it about

In January of this year, scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported that they had successfully cloned primates using the same nuclear transplantation method that cloned the legendary Dolly the sheep. She died back in 2003, and many of my peers watched news releases about this event with undisguised surprise, delight and a bit of fear.

Cloned sheep. Is it a joke! In teenage consciousness, she turned into something comparable to an alien cyborg, the eighth wonder of the world in an organic shell. After all, the Internet in those years was issued in extremely limited and expensive portions, and therefore it was not easy to unearth information about the animal, but on TV they spoke rather generally and vaguely ...

In general, since then, science has not stood still over the corpse of a cloned sheep that has become a world celebrity. Humanity has progressed from experiments with tadpoles to primates and human embryos. But first things first.

Who are clones?

Clones are the result of cloning, no matter how surprising it may sound. To begin with, even identical twins can be safely called clones, because they developed from the same fertilized egg. Clones are also cells of multicellular organisms, and even plants that were obtained as a result of vegetative (asexual) reproduction: cuttings, tubers, bulbs, rhizomes, etc. This is a rather ancient plant breeding tool, thanks to which we eat tolerable vegetables and fruits.

But if everything is clear with plants, then a person or a cow cannot be propagated by a bulb. From our parents we get a set of genes, these sets are different, since we have different moms and dads. That is why we are not the same as just dad or just mom. Each of us is unique! From a genetic point of view, of course. And this is wonderful: the more different people, the wider the diversity of the species and the more it is protected from any kind of environmental shocks.

How to create a clone using Dolly the Sheep as an example

Dolly was born on July 5, 1996 in Scotland. It happened in the laboratory of Jan Wilmuth and Keith Campbell at the Roslyn Institute. She was born as the most ordinary sheep. But her mother was long dead at the time of her birth. Dolly is derived from the nucleus of the somatic cell in the udder of her genetic mother. These cells were frozen in liquid nitrogen. A total of 227 eggs were used, 10% of which eventually grew to the state of embryos. But only one managed to survive.

He grew up in the body of his surrogate mother, whom he entered by transplanting the cell nucleus from a donor into the cytoplasm of the egg of his future carrier, freed from the nucleus. The subject received a double set of chromosomes only from her mother, whose genetic copy she was.

Dolly lived like a normal sheep. True, she spent most of her time locked up and away from her relatives. It's still a lab. By the age of six, the sheep had developed arthritis and later retroviral lung disease. Usually these animals live up to 10-12 years, but Dolly decided to be euthanized halfway through, which caused a lot of gossip in the media.

Some scientists, as well as the media, have speculated that cloning may have been the cause of the sheep's early death. The fact is that the cell of an adult individual with already shortened telomeres was chosen as the base material for Dolly. These are the endings of chromosomes, which are shortened with each division. This process is called one of the main causes of aging.

But okay, let the scientists succeed on some of the Earths in numerous parallel universes. What's next? What about the egg? Where can you find a related species close enough in structure that can bear future dinosaurs? And can they even exist in today's environment? Some people can't stand rearranging the room, and poor dinosaurs will have to breathe air that is 21% oxygenated instead of the usual 10-15% millions of years ago.

Therefore, it is worth looking at views that are closer to us along the timeline. For example, the last wonderful dodo bird left this cruel world back in the 17th century, but even schoolchildren know about it (not sure if today). All thanks to a caricatured self-portrait of Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland.

Several specimens of this bird in the form of stuffed animals have been preserved in various museums. Their soft tissues have also been preserved, and among the relatives is the Nicobar dove, which could bear the offspring of the dodo. True, so far all this is just talk.

Among the well-known, but, unfortunately, failed attempts to reanimate the dead species is the Pyrenean ibex, which disappeared relatively recently - in 2000. In 2009, his clone was born, who lived only seven minutes.

Why do I need a clone?

While in theory, but not always in practice, two types of human cloning are discussed: therapeutic and reproductive. The first involves the cloning of cells of certain tissues (not organs) for the purpose of transplantation. The tissues obtained in this way will not be rejected by the patient's body, because they are essentially his own. Useful thing.

How it works? A patient's cell is taken, the nucleus of which is transplanted into the cytoplasm (internal environment) of the egg, which has already lost its nucleus. This egg multiplies, develops into an early embryo five days old. Then, in Petri dishes, the resulting stem cells are transformed into tissues needed by scientists and physicians.

Who might need a reproductive clone? People who have lost their loved ones and want to return them in this way? But clones are not born at the right age. This only happens in science fiction.

Ethics

Cloning still has too many unresolved ethical issues. And working with embryos, albeit at a very early stage of their development, leads to waves of criticism against geneticists. In particular, from religious organizations. Still, they cannot approve of the artificial creation of life and the assimilation of gods.

In addition, human reproductive cloning is directly prohibited in many countries of the world and threatens with criminal liability. Yes, methods worked out on animals exist and scientists do not see any obstacles to human cloning, except for moral ones. However, the problem is that animals are not individuals. No, I love and respect animals (not all), but the fact remains: they are built into our digestive chain. And no one asks a cow clone for her opinion on how to cook a steak.

The reproductive cloning of a person assumes that it will not be a simple set of organs, but over the years it will form into a personality that can radically differ from the original (this, in particular, is demonstrated by twins). And the legal status of a clone will be indefinite: what rights and obligations should he have at all? How should it interact with its original? For whom will he be a grandson or heir?

As for therapeutic cloning, it is also banned in many countries around the world. Although for scientific purposes they can always make an exception.

She spoke about human cloning and the UN. Negative. In the Declaration on Human Cloning of 2005, the organization stated that the application of the achievements of the biological sciences should serve to alleviate suffering and promote the health of the individual and humanity as a whole. The document calls for a ban on all forms of human cloning to the extent that they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life.

Despite this, timidly, bashfully, but inexorably, more and more research institutes are embarking on the study of therapeutic cloning. When the time comes, humanity will still have to weigh the pros and cons, remove ethical questions and resolve moral dilemmas. Because progress can be delayed, but not reversed.

Cloning is a process in which a genetically identical copy is produced through asexual reproduction. The term is commonly used to refer to artificial human cloning. There are two widely discussed types of human cloning: therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning.

The term "clone" was coined in 1963 by J. B. S. Haldane, the eminent Scottish biologist, in a speech entitled "Biological Opportunities for Human Species for the Next Ten Thousand Years."

By order of 57-year-old American Bernann McKinney, a dog was cloned in a South Korean clinic.

The history of human cloning can be traced back to the 1880s, when scientists tried to prove how genetic material works in cells.

That genetic material is not lost during cell division was demonstrated by Hans Dreisch cloning sea urchins by separating two cells and growing them himself. In 1902, Hans Spemman repeats the same process on salamanders.

It is very difficult to trace the chronology of plant cloning, due to the fact that such plant cloning has been practiced for thousands of years both by people and in nature itself.

Human Cloning - Pros and Cons

People started talking about human cloning when Scottish scientists from the Roslin Institute created the famous sheep Dolly. This aroused worldwide interest and concern.
Cloning is not as far removed from procedures as in vitro fertilization, where the egg is fertilized in a laboratory and then transferred to the uterus.

In vitro fertilization typically requires extraction from many cells and can be done multiple times to work, if it works at all and produces results. It can also lead to multiple pregnancies.

Cloning is just another reproductive alternative, and unlike IVF, it takes up very few cells and works the first time, making it a more efficient way to reproduce during pregnancy.
Animals currently cloned have genetically the most desirable qualities. Research is also being done on cloning endangered species and dead animals.

In 2009, the Pyrenean buffalo was cloned, but only lived for 7 minutes before becoming extinct again.

How does human cloning work?

Human cloning is the production of a genetic copy of some other person. The nucleus, or central part of the cell, contains most of its genetic material.
In cloning, the nucleus of a body cell (such as a skin cell) is used to replace the nucleus of an unfertilized egg. When the embryo is activated, a clone is created that is a doppelgänger of the person from whom the nucleus was taken.

Depending on what we want to get, cloning is called "reproductive" or "therapeutic", but the original method of obtaining a clone was the same.
"Reproductive" cloning will occur if a clone is transferred into a woman's body and allowed to be born. "Therapeutic" cloning can occur if the goal was to destroy it in order to obtain parts.

The parts are in the center of the embryo, which will die when these cells are extracted. The cells can then be used in transplant research for those with certain medical conditions. Stem cells are versatile cells that produce the specific cells needed by a particular patient.

There are, however, other sources of stem cells that are not associated with embryos, such as adult bone marrow, umbilical cord or stored at birth.
In addition to successful attempts to clone various animal species, the 20th century also saw some of the major advances in genealogy. The successful deciphering of the DNA code in 1968 was the main impetus for the very rapid development of human cloning.

In 1988, the human genome, the Homosapiens genome, stored on 23 pairs of chromosomes, was deciphered. As things stand, science has been admirably moving towards the development of a human clone.
A major blow came in the form of the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2009, which considers cloning to be illegal, unethical and immoral.

Against human cloning came opinions from the scientific community, who were not satisfied with the results of animal cloning, as well as religious communities that consider human cloning to be an interference with human life and procreation.
This is a brief history of human cloning, covering a period of about 120 years. As of 2009, when human cloning was considered an illegal activity in 23 countries.

The brotherhood of scientists and researchers hopes that human cloning will be legalized soon, after which they will be able to return to their laboratories and continue experiments related to previous research.

Ever since the world was shown the famous Dolly sheep, born without the participation of a male, interest in cloning has not weakened even among people who are very far from biological science. And, of course, the most important question: "Is it possible to clone a person?" Moreover, every now and then a sensational headline will pop up somewhere: "British (American, Japanese, Chinese - insert the right one) scientists have successfully cloned a person!" True, these headlines do not appear in scientific almanacs and not on the websites of research institutes and academies - but what a self-respecting layman reads serious scientific publications!

But seriously… it is theoretically possible. Why do we say "theoretically"? Yes, because so far there has not been a single experiment, only theoretically one can argue. Scientists are in no hurry to start practicing, and there are reasons for this ... and here we will briefly digress from objective reality and turn to science fiction.

In one of the episodes of the science fiction series Star trek: Next generation, the crew of the starship Enterprise meets a mysterious planet where the descendants of the crew of another ship that once crashed live. The heroes are surprised that among the inhabitants there are a lot of people “of the same face”, and soon these people put forward a strange demand: to give up all the children who are on board the Enterprise.

It turns out that for many generations these people reproduced by cloning (after all, it was impossible to create a large population of several surviving crew members in a natural way) - that's why there are so many similar people among them, and most importantly - the accumulation of genetic errors in the cloning process led to that the last generation cannot be reproduced even in this way! That's why they needed other people's children ...

Science fiction does not always live up to its epithet, but in this case, the scriptwriters' idea turned out to be extremely close to reality. The same sheep Dolly was shown to the general public because this experiment was successful, but how many were unsuccessful? Hundreds! Intrauterine fetal death, death shortly after birth, edema, placental anomalies, immune deficiency - this is only a small part of the list of disorders that scientists have encountered in animal cloning experiments. Often, animals were born with serious defects in the heart and other vital organs, and this was due to those same genetic errors. Consequently, no one guarantees that when cloning a person, one healthy person will not have several hundred disabled people - much more than when reproducing naturally. What to do with the result of a failed experiment? It's not a sheep that you can just pick up and kill like that - it's a man, his murder will be a criminal offense ... or will it not? Maybe the cloned person will not be considered as a full-fledged individual with all civil rights? This humanity has already "passed" in ancient times, and without any cloning - and no one wants to return to this ...

The question of human cloning can be put in a slightly different way: for what? The possibility of cloning higher primates can be studied without any particular ethical problems in the animal closest to humans - the chimpanzee. Studying the psychological differences of genetically identical people? This has been remarkably studied and continues to be studied in twins. And what practical value can human cloning have?

Those who judge cloning based on science fiction films like The Sixth Day usually present it like this: now we are cloning A.S. Pushkin - and he will immediately begin to write masterpieces for us. In reality, everything happens a little differently: the clone does not get out of the autoclave as an adult and “ready-to-eat” individual - it is an embryo that differs from the usual one only in that it is an exact genetic copy of the mother (it is genetic - other factors that scientists influence on intrauterine development) are called epigenetic, so the clone will not be an exact copy even in the physical sense). Then this embryo is implanted in the uterus (and not placed in an apparatus - there are no such devices and are not expected in the foreseeable future), where it develops as an embryo of its species is supposed to develop, then it is born, grows, develops ... and if it is a person, then he still has to be educated and trained. A clone of A.S. Pushkin, even if we create it, will not listen to the fairy tales of Arina Rodionovna, will not study at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum ... and there will be many things in his childhood that made the “original” a great poet.

Perhaps the main argument against the cloning of geniuses lies precisely in the fact that people who will raise these children will initially consider their pupils to be brilliant ... such an “experiment” is often put by some irresponsible parents, only now they grow up not great writers, scientists and musicians, but ordinary hysterics and neurasthenics.

The idea of ​​“conveyor production” of ideal soldiers seems equally dubious - after all, such an “army of the future” will first require an “army” of surrogate mothers ... and the military power of a state in the modern world is determined not so much by soldier muscles as by the presence of high-tech weapons - and it is much more reasonable to quit state resources for this "front" if we want to strengthen the army.

The hope that cloning will make a person immortal is completely meaningless: even if we were able to copy and upload into the clone’s brain the entire life experience of the original (as the heroes of the movie “The Sixth Day” do - in reality there is no such technology and is not expected), anyway the original could not be embodied in it and say: "Here, it's me - young again." The most he can do is to look at his clone and think: “This is how I was in my youth.” An egoist who is preoccupied with preserving his “beloved one” (and other people, as a rule, do not think about immortality) will obviously not be satisfied with this option.

I can’t help but recall the statement of one citizen who hid behind a nickname and avatar on a social network (it is doubtful that he would have said something similar to someone’s face): with the help of cloning, beautiful women can be replicated and distributed to men, and all other women should be destroyed … what can I say? Certainly this citizen does not consider women human beings. But this expresses the main problem of human cloning: to do this, we will have to stop considering a person as a person.

So, the question of the possibility of human cloning can be answered as follows: it is theoretically possible, but no one will do this, even if there is no practical sense. Much more relevant (and not so acute from an ethical point of view) is the idea of ​​cloning individual organs and tissues for transplantation ... but its practical implementation is still far away.

ALL PHOTOS

The first cloned human was born. The birth of a girl who is an exact genetic copy of her 30-year-old mother, a US citizen, was reported by the AFP agency, citing representatives of the Raelians religious sect. As expected, the birth required a caesarean section, but otherwise the delivery went "very well," says biochemist Brigitte Boisselier, head of the company set up to carry out the project. Clonaid .

The woman who became the mother of the first clone girl had previously suffered from infertility, Nadine Gary, a spokeswoman for the US private firm Clonaid, who supervised the pregnancy, told Kyodo Tsushin.

However, while scientists treat this message with understandable skepticism: the project was carried out in an atmosphere of deep secrecy, so there is no reliable evidence that the child is really a "clone".

Among the skeptics, for example, is Alexander Zelenin, professor at the Institute of Molecular Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In an interview He told Ekho Moskvy that "there is absolutely no certainty" about the veracity of the sect's statement about the birth of a cloned girl.

According to Zelenin, "scientists are accustomed to believing a new scientific fact only after it is published in a reputable journal, where all the details of the experiment, its result are presented, full proof is given that this is a cloned child, and so on."

If all this is true, the scientist suggested, "the same thing will happen as with Dolly the sheep: until these experiments were repeated, reproduced on a number of other animals, the whole world doubted the results of these works."

Boisselier plans to hold a press conference on Friday evening where he promises to show the video footage and provide the DNA of the mother and the cloned child for independent identification. A mother with a baby will not be shown to the public "for reasons of medical ethics."

The girl, who was born on Thursday, was the first of five whose cloned embryos were previously reported to develop normally.

The Raelian sect has 55,000 followers worldwide. These people believe that aliens who visited the planet about 25,000 years ago brought life to Earth. The head of the sect "prophet" Rael teaches that all life on Earth was created by space aliens using genetic engineering. In 1997, with the financial support of the sect, the Clonaid company was organized, which should embody the ultimate goal of the Raelians: to achieve immortality through cloning.

Earlier, another leader in this field, the Italian doctor Severino Antinori, who became famous after he helped a 62-year-old patient become pregnant by medical methods, announced his success in human cloning. He recently announced that his cloned child, "whose father is a rich Arab," should be born in January 2003, but later retracted his words.

Antinori himself, commenting on the news of the birth of a cloned girl, called her "scientifically untenable." Antinori also once again urged journalists to "keep quiet" about his own cloning experiments.

The clone will be a defective creature and will grow old in 30 years, according to Russian scientists

Even if the human cloning experiment is indeed a success, it is an irresponsible and immoral step, says Yevgeny Sverdlov, director of the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"The results of animal cloning experiments showed that in most cases various developmental anomalies were detected. And the life of a cloned person will become a nightmare, since by the age of 30 he will turn into an old man," the scientist said in an interview with ITAR-TASS.

In addition, according to Sverdlov, "in 99% of cases there is a risk of giving birth to a freak." For example, to create the famous sheep Dolly, 300 transplants had to be done - "all the other clones either died or were born freaks," Sverdlov notes. Yes, and Dolly herself revealed various diseases - for example, polyarthritis - not characteristic of sheep, and signs of early aging appeared.

"When it comes to an illegal and uncontrolled action, you can expect anything," summed up Sverdlov.

If the experiment is successful, then it will become a new word in medicine. The chief obstetrician of the Ministry of Health, Vladimir Serov, generally believes that very soon cloning will become an ordinary and widespread area of ​​\u200b\u200bmedical activity, including in Russia. "The scientific basis of the cloning process is quite well developed. In fact, it can be carried out in any in vitro fertilization laboratory (producing a child "from a test tube"), of which there are many throughout the world," the doctor said in an interview with Interfax. There are more than 20 such laboratories in Russia. "Only the ethical side of the issue and the unpredictability of the consequences of cloning stop doctors," Serov said.

"Progress and science cannot be stopped," the doctor is sure. And for Russia, "considering the difficult demographic situation," cloning "may be a way out." "If we think about the future of the nation, then we must not stand in the way of these technologies, we must promote their development and transfer to a civilized channel," Serov says.