LEGAL ISSUES OF HUMAN CLONING AND THERAPUTIC CLONING

1
LEGAL ISSUES OF HUMAN CLONING AND THERAPUTIC
CLONING
2
WORLDWIDE CLONING RESEARCH LEGSLATION
Country Human cloning Therapeutic Cloning Create/Use of embryo
Germany Illegal Illegal Illegal
UK Illegal Legal Supernumerary OK
Japan Illegal Legal Legal
Canada Illegal Legal Sterility only
US Illegal Legal Private company only
China Illegal Legal Therapeutic
3
CLONING ANIMALS

• A costly and lengthy approach
• Dolly 1 out of 276 attempts
• Mouse 100 blastocysts transferred to wombs,
  seventy-one were able to take, from which between
  five and sixteen fetuses developed, and
  eventually two or three live mice were born
• Only private funded research with creation of
  embryo is allowed in States

4
PRIVATIZED CLONING RESEARCH

• Research carried out in commercial labs is not as
  accessible and amenable to being judged and
  criticized by other scientists.
• High demand of human ova can result in
  uncontrollable coercion or exploitation of ova
  donors
• The absence of transparency and scrutiny not only
  hinders scientific advance but also can make the
  public, and lawmakers, nervous.
• Legislation of identity, rights and status of
  clones must be established before any human
  cloning research is permitted

5
CLONE IDENTITY

• The most accurate human identity diagnosis will
  fail (e.g. DNA profile, fingerprints)
• Difficulties of enforcing laws
• Criminal identity
• Inherited properties between donor and clone
• Kinship of offsprings
• Relatives approval immigration, etc.

6
TREATING CLONES AS NORMAL INDIVIDUALS

• Will citizenship granted for clones?
• Clones carried with mutations from donors
• Should our current health care system support a
  multiplying clone population with inherited
  diseases?
• Will handicapped clones receive public support by
  providing with extra privileges?

7
TREATING CLONES AS SUB-HUMANS

• How can we treat sub-humans?
• Will we have right to destroy clones at certain
  physical state and age to save medical care?
• Will the discrimination of legislation between
  human and clone become slavery?
• What if clones have significant support of the
  society?

8
(No Transcript)
9
ANTI-CLONING

• Ethics

10
Threat to a person's individuality and uniqueness

• Genetically identical with another person
• Feel that they are a less unique individual than
  other people
• Because they genetically identical, they will
  have almost everything in common with their
  genetic parent

11
Relationship problems

• Kinship problems within the family
• Social relationships
• Relationship problems within the family

12
It's too risky

• At present, it is experimental and unpredictable
• Carries a high risk of abnormality in the
  resulting child
• Put both the cell donor and the birth mother at
  risk
• High failure rate

13
Eugenics Start of a Brave New World

• Encourages selective breeding
• Discriminate against people
• Genocide is an extreme form of eugenics
• Could be used to produce an superior master race
  and underclass of slaves

14
We should not play God !

• Nature has devised the proper way to make babies,
  and we shouldn't interfere with natural law by
  doing it in a different way
• A child conceived in the normal way is a unique
  product of the union of its mother and father
  and is not a genetic replica of either parent.
• In normal procreation, the genes of a child are
  determined by chance through the fruitful union
  of two people

15
It involves murdering embryos

• Cloning inevitably involves throwing away some
  fertilized embryos, and at the current stage of
  development many of the embryos selected to live
  fail to develop and eventually die before birth

16
Emotional Distress

• Emotions involving dealing with moral dilemmas
• If emotions are part of how we decide that
  something is wrong, then we need to accept some
  kinds of emotional reaction as part of our
  ethical thinking

17
Human cloning may cause unexpected demographic
changes

• Cloning could alter the ratio of males and
  females in the population
• Cloning could accelerate the move away from the
  two parent family
• Cloning could alter the age of parents relative
  to their children, by allowing people to have
  children at a later age
• If there was general agreement on the sort of
  people who were desirable, society could become
  more homogeneous

18
Cloning reduces human beings to manufactured
products

• The way a person comes into being affects their
  value - or their dignity
• People should be made by an act of love between
  their parents, not by a laboratory process
• Supposing a particular embryo turns out to be
  very good - someone could patent its genes and
  use it to manufacture lots of similar clones for
  profit. That would degrade people

19
Problems of power

• Invokes a degree of power and control over the
  physical identity of other persons

20
Take-home Message
21
Issues In CloningLoss of Biodiversity
22
What is Biodiversity

• Three types of Biodiversity
• habitat diversity, genetic diversity, and species
  diversity
• Of these Genetic Diversity is at risk through
  Cloning
• Why is Genetic Diversity So Important?
• Conveys the small differences between members of
  a species that promote the survival and continued
  improvement of the species as a whole
• Darwinian Evolution

23
Genetic Biodiversity

• Why should humans worry about diversity?
• Many traits are being linked to genetics which
  were previously though to be unrelated including
  anger, intelligence and obesity.

• Diversity allows our species to flourish
• Exceptional individuals such as Einstein DeVinci
  have greatly molded the advancement of human
  society.
• Genetic Diversity is essential to disease
  resistance (survival of the species)
• AIDS, Plague (CCR5)

24
Examples of Diversity Problems

• The problems caused by a loss in genetic
  biodiversity are real.

• Bananas
• Worldwide crops are threatened by a fungal
  pathogen
• This is dues to the clonal nature in which banana
  crops grow

• Cloned Trees
• Some trees are more resistant than others to
  certain diseases. Forest companies have to ensure
  that a wide enough variety of clones is used to
  repopulate a forest to prevent potential disaster

25
Other Genetic Diversity Problems

• Other genetic problems could arise in a clonal
  society, similar to those observed in inbreeding
• Clones of clones could pick up mutations through
  each passage.
• Mutations in haplosufficient genes
• Mutations in haploinsufficient genes

26
REPRODUCTIVE CLONING
27
METHOD
SOMATIC CELL NUCLEAR TRANSFER
28
PARTHENOGENESIS
29
INSTABILITY AND UNPREDICTABILITY

• DNA TRANSFERRED IS ALREADY DIFFERENTIATED
• DIFFERENTIATED SOMATIC CELLS FORMATTED
  DIFFERENTLY FROM GERM CELLS
• DIFFERENTIATED DNA MUST BE
• REPROGRAMMED TO ALLOW EMBRYOGENESIS
• BUT HOW??

30

• NUCLEAR REPROGRAMMING
• REQUIRES REMOVAL OF EPIGENIC MODIFICATIONS
  IMPOSED ON DIFFERENTIATED CHROMATIN
• OOCYTE CAN REVERSE THESE ALTERATIONS TO A
• STATE OF TOTIPOTENCY
• HOW THIS IS DONE IS CURRENTLY UNKNOWN
• HOW EFFICIENT IS THIS??
• FOR EVERY ANIMAL CLONED, HUNDREDS FAIL!!

31

• MORE ON EFFICACY
• MANY FAILURES AND DEFECTS
• NO DEFINED ASPECTS OF FAULTY DEVELOPMENT
• RATHER, CLONING PROCESS CREATES RANDOM ERRORS IN
  INDIVIDUAL GENE EXPRESSION
• MAY PRODUCE A MANY NUMBER OF UNPREDICTIBLE
  PROBLEMS
• DOES NOT INVOLVE CHROMOSOMAL ABERRATION
• DEFECTS CANNOT BE DETECTED BEFORE BIRTH

32

• THE TELOMERE PROBLEM
• AGE OF A EUKARYOTE RELATED TO LENGTH OF ITS
• TELOMERES
• TELOMERES RELATED TO CHROMOSOMAL INTEGRITY
• TELOMERE LENGTH OF SOMATIC CELLS MUCH
• SHORTER THAN GERM CELLS
• FOR SUCCESSFUL CLONING, ONE MUST TURN BACK THE
• CLOCK!!

33

• REJUVINATION
• THE ENZYME RESPONSIBLE FOR EXTENDING THE
• TELOMERES IS TELOMERASE
• THIS ENZYME IS NOT NORMALLY PRESENT IN SOMATIC
• CELLS, BUT SOME HAVE SHOWN ITS ACTIVITY IN CLONED
  EMBRYONIC CELLS
• THIS MAY SUGGEST THAT THE OOCYTE CAN TURN BACK
  THE CLOCK
• HOWEVER!!

34

• NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS SENESCENCE OF DONOR CELLS
  IS NOT RESTORED
• 14 CATTLE CLONED USING DONOR CELLS FROM MUSCLE,
  OVIDUCT, MAMMARY, AND EAR SKIN
• SHOW REMARKABLE VARIATION IN TELOMERE LENGHTS
• SOME MUCH LONGER OR MUCH SHORTER THAN DONOR
• SUGGESTS THAT CLONING DOES NOT NECESSARILY
  RESTORE TELOMERE CLOCK
• NUCLEAR TRANSFER ITSELF ITSELF MAY COMMONLY
  TRIGGER AN ELONGATION OF TELOMERES, MORE OR LESS
  ACCORDING TO DONOR TYPE
• Myashita et. Al Biol Reprod 2002
  Jun66(6)1649-55

35

• GENETIC DEFECTS
• DOLLY-SHORTENED TELOMERES
• HEART DEFECTS IN PIGS
• OBESITY IN CLONED MICE
• GIGANTISM IN CLONED SHEEP AND CATTLE
• PLACENTA OF 4X NORMAL SIZE IN MICE
• DEVELOPMENTAL DIFFICULTIES IN , LUNG PROBLEMS,
• AND MALFUNCTIONING IMMUNE SYSTEMS IN CLONED
• COWS, SHEEP AND PIGS

36

• EVIDENCE THUS FAR
• CLONING IS STILL POORLY UNDERSTOOD
• CLONING IS FAR TOO INEFFICIENT
• GIVEN THESE FACTORS, IT WOULD BE DANGEROUS AND
• IRRESPONSIBLE TO ATTEMPT TO CLONE HUMAN BEINGS
• CLONING OF ANIMALS SHOULD NOT CONTINUE GIVEN
• THE ABNORMALITIES THAT RENDER THESE PRACTICES
• UNETHICAL

37

• MISCONCEPTIONS BORDERING ON IDIOCY
• CLONED INDIVIDUALS DO NOT IN FACT APPEAR
• ADULT SIZE FROM TANKS FILLED WITH EMBRYONIC
• FLUID
• CLONED INDIVIDUALS WILL NOT HAVE ALL THE
• CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DONOR
• ALTHOUGH THE TWO WILL BE GENETICALLY
• EQUIVALENT (GIVEN NO SEVERE ABNORMAITIES)
• PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER DEVELOP IN
• CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT

38
Why Clone ?
39
Organ Harvesting

• The ability to create individuals with
  near-identical genetics would allow for easier
  organ transplantation
• This is fraught with perils as killing someone is
  illegal and organ removal greatly weakens the
  donor
• Cloning is horribly inefficient as it is quite
  difficult to even create a clone let alone
  waiting for one to develop to an appropriate age
  for adult organ transplantation

40
Embryonic vs. Adult Stem Cells

• Only embryonically harvested stem cells are
  created through cloning
• The conversion of adult cells into cells with
  stem cell like features does not require cloning
• All that is required to create adult stem cells
  is extraction of cells and treatment with media
  to stimulate differentiated cells to
  undifferentiate and adopt a stem cell like
  phenotype

41
(No Transcript)
42
Disease Treatment

• Brain tumours
• Ovarian cancer
• Solid tumours
• Multiple myeloma
• Breast cancer
• Non-Hodgkins lymphoma
• Multiple sclerosis
• Systemic lupus
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Anaemia
• Stroke
• Immuno-deficiency.

43
Therapeutic Cloning

• At this time there are no practical roles for
  cloning in therapeutics
• Organ harvesting is unethical and suffers from
  both inefficiency and a long gestation period
• Stem cell transplantation while a viable therapy
  has been shown to be effective using adult stem
  cells removing the need to use cloning to produce
  embryonic stem cells

44
Where have all the bananas gone?

• The banana, discovered in South East Asia 10,000
  years ago, faces extinction due to parasites that
  resist drugs.
• Bananas can only reproduce clonally making it
  difficult to breed new, improved varieties and
  therefore impossible for them to adapt to drug
  resistant pathogens

45
Dont let this happen to us