• Question: What is your opinion on cloning?

    Asked by Ola to Cristiane, Nicki, Nikolai, Richard, Samuel on 17 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Simons

      Richard Simons answered on 17 Mar 2015:

      It depends on the application:
      Knowledge and skills that we have learn from processes such as IVF and the cloning of dolly the sheep have led us directly to where we are now, very close to being able to fully synthesise organs within a lab. That tissue could have two uses: it could be transplanted into a patient rather than requiring an organ donor and save thousands of lives each year; or, that tissue could be grown with the specific purpose of drug/medical testing, reducing the need to animal testing and increasing the validity of that area of research.
      If we’re talking about this kind of cloning (since the cells used in the above case would have had to be cloned from donor cells.

      In terms of reproducing whole individuals, I can’t really see the need for it, would you really want to produce another you? Since they’ll only be genetically you and not mentally, they’d share none of your memories or knowledge, and they’d have to be younger than you, since you had to exist before they possibly could.

    • Photo: Nikolai Adamski

      Nikolai Adamski answered on 17 Mar 2015:

      I think Richard said it all really.
      If we could easily create spare parts for our bodies, without the need for somebody to die for them (current organ transplant method), then that would be clearly an advantage, right?

      As for the cloning of individuals. As Richard says, we currently can only create a young copy of an organism. But this copy will share no memories with the original. Currently, I don’t see any scientific value in doing that.

      What do you think of cloning?

    • Photo: Samuel Ellis

      Samuel Ellis answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      Responsible use of cloning has a lot of great potential, such as the things Richard and Nikolai discussed like growing organs which match a patient, or using it in research to find out about genes for example. Some people are even working on ways to use cloning in the food industry, such as cloning cows for use producing dairy products.

      As long as it is regulated properly, cloning could be useful tool in the future for certain current problems 🙂

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