Ethical issues- you may be asked about this in I/GCSE Biology🤨
Animal cloning raises ethical issues about how far humans should be allowed to interfere in the production of new life. Regulations currently restrict scientific research into human cloning.
Cloning plants is easier than cloning animals. Cloning expensive food crops has been carried out for many years, and causes the public fewer ethical and moral concerns than animal cloning.
Advantages and disadvantages of cloning
How to clone cows using embryo transplants😅
This technique could be used to make many copies of cows that have a high milk yield. It would produce a herd of cows much faster than if the original cow was used for breeding in the normal way. Sexual reproduction is still involved and the calves are not identical to either parent.
Producing many genetically modified pigs
Pigs may be able to grow replacement organs for use in human transplant surgery. The pigs would first have human genes inserted into their cells so that the organs would not be rejected when transplanted into a human. Inserting human genes into a pig is very difficult. Once it has been done successfully the pig would be cloned so that many copies of the organ could be grown.
Advantages and disadvantages of cloning
Advantage👍🏻
- All the new plants are genetically identical – they will all have the desired characteristics.
- Organisms that are difficult or slow to breed normally can be reproduced quickly.
- Some plant varieties do not produce seeds, others have seeds that are dormant for long periods.
Disadvantage 👎🏻
- If a clone is susceptible to disease or changes in environment, then all the clones will be susceptible.
- It will lead to less variation, and less opportunity to create new varieties in the future.
Reference: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bCjU35Gu_GU/U-9gGR5eP2I/AAAAAAAAEYM/IA2hBLsSWdo/s1600/Science-in-Hinduism-Cloning-humans2.png.jpg
Drafted by Catrina (Biology)