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#31 caliban

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Posted 05 January 2003 - 02:02 AM

I'm not comfortable with reproductive cloning as I understand it. Reproductive cloning to make a twin of yourself... I don't see the ethical or moral imperative in this. Where am I going wrong?

I suggest in assuming that you should prohibit an activity simply because you do not see the "moral imperative".

Some reasons why reproductive cloning could be performed include:
-wishing to reproduce while being infertile and unable (or unwilling) to rely on IVF
-wishing ones offspring to have a certain genetic trait, but not being able to rely on, (or objecting to) embryo selection in IVF

Thus: as member of Immortality Institute, and advisor on biotech law and ethics, I would like to voice a slightly

Dissenting Opinion:

The technique of reproductive cloning does raise
potential problems of predestination and infringement of the
rights to freedom of the clone. On the safety side concerns
about the health of clone and mother, standartisation and
depletion of the gene pool should be considered.

BUT since none of these problems are imminent at this stage,
reproductive cloning should not be prohibited, if it is
performed privately.
The existing law in most countries is prepared to deal with
a situation where the woman suffers injury without her
informed consent, as it is suited to deal with a situation where
a parent is unfit to rear a child.

However, before public funds are used for research or
application, a review board should look into the motives of
the individual wishing to clone, disallowing the process if there
are any doubts that the child produced will be brought up in a
responsible and loving way.


Raelllians are loony, but at least they had the guts to go ahead and defy the scaremongering hypocrisy of the anti-cloning debate since Huxley and especially since Dolly. Clones are not monsters. The only monsters are in the minds of those unwilling to rationalize their fear about what they do not perceive as "normal" or "natural".

Finally, as Mr. Klein pointed out above it is a scientific and philosophical fallacy to even consider "reproductive cloning" and (unfortunately so-called) "therapeutic cloning" in the same argument. The two topics are quite distinct and should be treated as such!

#32 immortalitysystems.com

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Posted 05 January 2003 - 05:58 AM

Just a thought

I think the time has come to consider the creation of a Master Race.
With the availability of cloning and recombinant DNA splicing (gene engineering) i see no reason to not use these techniques in the pursuit of individual physical immortality, which would be one of the desired atributs .
In case the present population of Earth is opposed to Homo Immortal, orbital space at the La Grangian Liberation Points could be considered as the first home base.
This could also be a driving force to build SKYLAND in orbital space, the new destination for migration, which has always been the driving force in human evolution.

Click HERE to rent this GENETICS advertising spot to support LongeCity (this will replace the google ad above).

#33 Bruce Klein

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Posted 07 January 2003 - 05:07 AM

Caliban.. I've read some things that have changed my mind about a ban.
http://www.reproduct...open/myths.html

Thanks for the post.. I've changed the position:


---

Immortalitysystem,
Why do we need to "create a master race", why not be the master race?

#34 immortalitysystems.com

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Posted 07 January 2003 - 07:10 AM

BJKlein,

Great that you changed your mind about ban on reproductive cloning. I feel that at this point there should not be any laws that restrict or hinder the persuit of "immortality".

In the USA we have freedom of religion, which also function as tools of "immortality". In that sense "Gene Engineering" should be treated as a religion.
The term i used for the new race of Homo Immortal may have been unfortunate. Is "Superman" or better "Superhuman" more apropiate? Or do you think all of homo sapiens sapiens will make the move (evolve) to the new stage we are talking about?

#35 Avatar Polymorph

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Posted 13 January 2003 - 05:36 AM

In the current situation, my views on cloning are that it should not be done when the health of the mother is endangered or the chances of deformity are extreme, in the case of births. Cloning up to the formation of a functional brain for research and medical purposes is fine in my view (killing a developing foetus after this point is unethical to me).

A successful clone is just like a twin or triplet.

I believe under current circumstances that cloning for money, like adoption by money, should not be allowed.

I believe that there are particular circumstances where cloning can hardly be called unfair, such as when a mother who has lost a child becomes infertile (and loses her eggs) and wishes to have another child through preserved tissue of the dead child.

Under current circumstances I believe it should be illegal to clone more than once or twice from any one individual. I believe that much opposition to cloning arises from a fear of possible excess by crazed billionaires or governments (seeking more efficient soldiers).

In real life I doubt there will be a "rush to clone."

Fears of cloning based on "erosion of genetic diversity" will melt in the face of the increasing ability to induce self-directed change in one's dna, and later in many cases one's dna-molecular supercomputer mix.

Edited by Avatar Polymorph, 13 January 2003 - 05:40 AM.


#36 DJS

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Posted 14 January 2003 - 05:45 AM

I believe that cloning for reproductive purposes has very little practical value and will be detrimental to the our long term goals as immortalists. We have to consider the knee jerk reaction of the religious majority when they are confronted with a fringe group like the raelians. By having the raelians come out looking like a bunch of goons we only gave our opponents more ammunition against us. We should not try to "shock" the christian majority. This will only result in major resistricts being imposed legislatively. Instead, we should try to gradually acclimate society to the changes that are coming. In my opinion the Raelians were a PR disaster that could threaten the advancement of therapeutic cloning. An even bigger PR disaster would be cloned babies with major defects (which is a very realistic possiblity considering the results of animal cloning). We need to keep our eye on the prize! Therapeutic cloning, at the present time, has many more practical applications that reproductive cloning. Let's not blow it by turning the issue of cloning into a freak show.

#37 Bruce Klein

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Posted 14 January 2003 - 11:32 AM

Kissinger, I felt much the same as you initually. However, after reading Pence, and thinking about it a bit more, there's no moraly sound reason why we should ban it. While it may seem politically correct to ban reproductive cloning now, this could change drastically as techniques improve in the future.

Please consider Pence's arguments, thanks.


The author is Professor G. Pence, a lecturer on philosophy and medical ethics at the University of Alabama. Gregory Pence is a bioethicist philosophically supportive of human cloning, once primate studies have shown it to be safe. http://www.reproduct...open/myths.html

#38 Lazarus Long

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Posted 14 January 2003 - 01:32 PM

Well I must admit I enjoy reading your "Real Politik" perspective Mr. Kissinger and I have to agree that I see many of the same complications with regard to unintended, and UNDESERVED blowback upon us for the actions of the "Fringe" elements of this movement.

And Transhhumanists have this problem: We must realize that this fringe element is a an element of OUR movement. So like the PLO trying to distance itself from the Islamic Jihad, get ready Spin Doctors we have a problem.

But that said there is no reason to throw the cloned baby out with the bath water. (OMG did I just say that?) ;)

So here is part of the difficulty, just because you can think of no good reason for Reproductive Cloning doesn't mean that I cannot, or others cannot. In fact quite the opposite, I can think of a lot of good uses for reproductive cloning. I will post one here that I had planned for a different forum in a moment but understand this, cloning is just a technique that represents asexual reproduction. It represents a throwback to earlier reproductive methodology from an evolutionary perspective, NOT A DEAD END.

Now, why would a species adopt such methods after a long successful run of evolution based upon sexual reproduction?

First of all to insure the survival of the species in the face of increasing threat from environment and behavioral risks, and second, to increase the ability of the species to specialize in relation to specific environmental nitches.

This is a trend in direct contrasting balance to the divergent trend of designed mutational adpation for new environmental expansion of our species. In other words, in a counter intuitive manner, cloning will become necessary for the preservation of existing, shall I say "Traditional" species characteristics in the face of a myriad of divergent strains.

Now at the risk of sounding like Dr. Mengala, which is a moniker I expect some Devil's Advocate to adopt here eventually, I can think of a number of investigative reasons to use cloning methods and we are going to have to address the "values" of such research. In other words we are going to have to walk a delicate ethical tightrope of goal assessment that is likely to keep us firmly placed between Scylla and Charybdis, hearing the Siren's song while tied to the mast.

Ain't life a bitch? [ph34r]

So let me give a valid example of "Investigative Cloning" that involves reproductive cloning. In a separate topic, I posted an argument for the study of the rare genetic disorder called Progeria in order to pursue identification of the actual genes controlling the Aging process (Bio Clock) and also with an eye towards creating methods for manipulating those genes. But there is a method that has been found using cloning that will offer a considerable amount of valuable information regardless of what results occur by applying the process.

Also as noted, in a recent study demonstrated that counter to all expectation, cloning Malignant Tumor tissue did NOT continue the Mutation causing the Cancer. In fact it appears that something occurs in the very earliest phases of Zygotic Biochemistry and Fetal formation that we have not yet discovered. Apparantly something DOES reset the genetic clock. Some trigger exists that will convert mutated cells back to the original genotype sans malignant mutation (A BIO/BIOS Reboot).

This seems to be too important a piece of the puzzle to ignore. Too important to allow a banning of the very techniques necessary to test these phenomenon.

Now here is the experiment that I want to propose and I don't want to continue this particular discussion here because it not relevent to the specific topic but I offer it as an example to counter your stated assumption.

I believe that cloning for reproductive purposes has very little practical value and will be detrimental to the our long term goals as immortalists.


If we first identify the specific area of the genome responsible for Progeria then we can "clone" the disorder in order to test first whether the gene damage reverses, indicating that mutation occurs as a developmental mutation ontologically, or if the mutation carries into the development of the cloned subject.

This would help determine wherther we are dealing with a pure genetic mutation that is inheritable or a mutation that is occurring due to errors in the early developmental cycle and thus treatable. Also we can examine the process at the same time with an eye to developing techniques that may offer a method of reprogramming our own biological clocks. Much will be determined by answers we do not yet have, and now we can see the techniques necessary to arrive at this knowledge but many are afraid of this.

Banning ALL Reproductive Cloning means placing the development of these techniques back into obscurity, and like the resistence to Blood Transfusing that occured in the 17th and 18th century we could be setting our Medical Technology back centuries when we are very close to learning how to do this right. Is this Scientifically Rational? Or just another example of your famed "Real Politik"?

I do however most whole heartedly agree that some discretion is most called for. And allowing the, shall I risk saying, (and I know I will get hate mail for this) "Lunatic Fringe" to control the Introduction of these methods is political suicide. I think it is time to Lead, not Follow, and most definitely not the right time to Get Out of the Way.

Trying to put our collective heads in the ground like an Ostrich is tantamount to volunteering to put our heads on the Guiillotine. I do not see an easy path regardless of what choice we make but I see a dead end if we do not accept this challenge to assess the legitimacy of this technology and promote such ethical llimits as can guide us effectively through this minefield. I don't expect this one to be easy at all.

#39 Mind

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Posted 14 January 2003 - 05:17 PM

My thoughts are most closely aligned with Avatar on this issue. Cloning via DNA manipulation will only be an issue for the next decade at best, when people start augmenting their brains with silicon it will open up even greater possibilities of "personal" or "collective" manipulation. That said, DNA manipulation is the starting point and the ethics should be worked out now. My feeling is that reproductive cloning is fine just as long as the risks of defect are extremely low (comparable to natural sex and pre-natal development).

But that said there is no reason to throw the cloned baby out with the bath water. (OMG did I just say that?)

Made me laugh Laz.

#40 Lazarus Long

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Posted 18 January 2003 - 09:08 PM

The cloning of Family "Pets" as a way to make most people in society more comfortable with the technology and also to test various aspects of the nurture versus nature debate.

To clone or not to clone these cross species friends we've made?

This is not only the question; it is one that influences larger issues.

Humanity.

Some of you know of the loss of my friend Chico.

He was a little dog and a big friend. These friends we've made are more than their body's alone as they are products of nurture not just nature, but as "animal" they are alledged to be more instinct than intellect. So why not test the theory?

Also there exists a quirk in the law for better or worse, these beings that we treat as "friends" have few real rights and fall intot he category of property, akin to how the law treated slaves over a century and half ago. But as such there can be less moral outrage for attempts to clone these animals and perhaps better testable ethics.

I would give my friend rebirth were it mine to give and I think we should accept that the tech has arrived that makes this possible. If the chemistry of nature and nurture is true then having the body back as a baby will only improve the odds of giving real life back to my old friend.

Is this hypothesis wrong?

My familar el Chiquito Chewbacca was a street dog, a feral fallen noble pup that survived till our doorstep in Mexico City. I called him Chico for short just like he was. He was a Silky Terrier.

That he survived at all was a testimony to the power of gentleness. He weighed 9 pounds and was quite nearly full grown when he found us. From that day forward he filled our family with joy and me with a sure friend. If I had him back I could even do better; but was his hardship and escape to the street in the first place necessary to make his character?

I would test this if I could and that tech exists but Chico no longer does, he was killed ten day ago by a prowling Pit Bull. Would that same dog exist? Or would that dog I became so familiar with be getting another chance at survival?

Yes I would suggest. Even if the memory wasn't continuous back to the start of his first life. My memory would overlap and his would start again.

Would he be the same friend as before?

Friends are who find each other and make it so.

This manner of redress of my grievance, (more importantly the victim's) allows for real justice, not revenge. by returning the victim back to life. But I can, so why aren't I?

This is a starting point for discussion. But it is not the most important topic this thread may yet reveal for that is the love at the core of the relationships that might wish to undo such tragic and unnecessary loss. This is what the real focus always should be.

Does cloning threaten love, or can they be compatible?

I think their compatibility can be demonstrated and most people fear it can't be.

This too is secondary to the issue of love.

Is wanting to clone someone loved and lost selfish?

Is this the destructive possessive variant or a creative resolve insired by love?

This is what the power of creative living brings, difficult decisions.

Add to this that understanding Human Selection demonstrates that to save some of the species that are threatened with extinction today some cloning will be necessary.

Is this not also a demonstration of loving behavior? A recognition of our collective responsibility as animal husbands to this world that gave us life?

To clone or not to clone does force a spiritual reasoning upon us all as a species and challenges to the fundamental ethical paradigms that we are most comfortable with, but regardless, the debate must be engaged.

#41 wannabe

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Posted 26 January 2003 - 12:10 AM

Jonathon M. Sullivan MD has a terrific collumn. This rebuttal deconstructs a typical argument for blocking inroads for life saving advancements through therapeutic cloning.


QM
Home

Posted Image
NeverWorlds


by Jonathon M. Sullivan MD, Ph.D.

EMBRYOS,
FINGERNAIL CLIPPINGS AND HOMONCULI:


The
Stem Cell Debate Rages On



In the latest issue of The
New Republic
(a most excellent journal of news,
editorials and reviews that you should all subscribe to at once),
columnist Andrew Sullivan mounts an eloquent but deeply flawed and
reactionary argument against the continued federal funding of stem
cell research ("Only
Human," July 30, 2001
). The Quantum Butcher read it. Then
he read it again. He thought about it awhile. And then, he took up
his particle cleaver.



I've always viewed QM as an educational column, and in general
I don't use it for editorializing. Nevertheless, on this occasion I'm
going to do just that, because this issue is so important and so
divisive, because the technology involved is so replete with promise
and peril, and because Mr. Andrew Sullivan is so irretrievably wrong,
that the whole mess just begs to be on the cutting board.



Sullivan begins his argument by appealing to his audience's deep and
abiding love...for Steven Spielberg movies. Recounting the grisly
"Flesh Fairs" in the recent release Artificial Intelligence,
in which Spielberg portrays the destruction of robots for the lurid
entertainment of humans, Sullivan asks: "if robots deserve
dignity, shouldn't blastocysts?"



Sullivan knows just how specious this comparison is, and asks the
rhetorical question, "Is the analogy a stretch?" But
instead of finding a creative way to extricate himself from his
corner, Sullivan just stomps across the paint, portraying his
comparison as having something to do with the old argument over
whether a blastocyst is a human being. He hopes we won't notice that
he's just compared the use of stem cells for the treatment of some of
the world's most devastating diseases to sick thrills in a coliseum.
But all of his handwaving can't disguise this cheap rhetorical trick.



So have it your way, Andrew. Let's pick that old scab of an argument. Is
a blastocyst a human being?



Sullivan now proceeds to skewer himself neatly and then pretends it's
only a flesh wound. He points out that, as far as most scientists are
concerned, a blastocyst is "no more human than, say, a clipped
fingernail (which contains all the DNA information for an entire
person, just as accurately as a blastocyst)."



Sullivan thinks he's setting up a straw man, but in fact he has just
made what is perhaps the single most compelling argument in favor of
ignoring those who, like him, have a bizarre, unnatural fetish for
little undifferentiated globs of protoplasm that just happen to
possess hominid DNA...
go to article at http://66.84.22.134/qm/10-01.htm


#42 DJS

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Posted 27 January 2003 - 03:41 AM

Kissinger, I felt much the same as you initually. However, after reading Pence, and thinking about it a bit more, there's no moraly sound reason why we should ban it. While it may seem politically correct to ban reproductive cloning now, this could change drastically as techniques improve in the future.

Please consider Pence's arguments, thanks.

BJ, I have considered Pence's argument. I do not disagree. My contention is not what is right from our moral perspective, but what is going to be acceptable to the American public. I follow politics. Reproductive cloning will banned by the end of 2003. We will be lucky if all cloning is not banned. This is a political reality.

#43 Lazarus Long

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Posted 27 January 2003 - 06:44 PM

I have to agree with Kissinger on this. At this moment a "reality check" will imply that he is quite correct. I am not only worried that we face an out an out ban in the United States but that we are unprepared to effectively take this show on the road.

Just as "Organized Vice" is tolerated under "current" international law, such that there are countries whose practices of gambling, prostitution, and drugs are allowed, I think it is already time to promote the establishment of such legalized safe havens before that avenue is preempted by a "Hail Mary Pass" at a "United Nations Convenant" to proscribe the tech world wide. I hear spring and fall are exquisite in Malta and Cuba might take the alternative approach with this even though the majority of the populace still claims to be Catholic.

It is always amazing to me how complacent "Rational People" are when they think that just a because a behavior is self destructive and/or simply irrational, that few would partake of it.

All I can remind everyone is that: "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride".

#44 Cyto

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Posted 27 January 2003 - 11:39 PM

Oh things will never get easier will they?

If the unfortunate day comes before BresaGens trials (stem cell injections into Parkinson's Pat.) then we will certainly have a problem.

Truly troubling. . .

Rouge Labs anyone? :)

#45 caliban

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Posted 28 January 2003 - 02:48 AM

(Kissinger): I follow politics. (...) We will be lucky if all cloning is not banned. This is a political reality.


1) Let me reiterate: There is no scientific and no ethical reason to even consider reproductive cloning and so-called "therapeutic" cloning in the same chapter. "Therapeutic cloning" apparently means therapeutic stem cell research. Stem cell technologies have as much connection with reproductive cloning as nine has with milk. There is virtually no "cloning" involved. Ask Helix, or AnotherGod or OcsRazor how many PCRs have they done in their life? Hundreds? Now THAT is cloning. It would really surprise me if they would outlaw PCR.
Just because this unfortunate label has been created by the media, does not mean that everybody has to go around using it.

2) A political reality is not an act of good, nor is it a natural disaster. (at least that's what I like to think) In a liberal democracy -even in a country like the US- a political reality is usually the medium of opposing forces, the "golden" path, the option least likely to piss most people off. If one does not venture into the extremes, if one does not stand up with ones opinion, but chooses to settle safely for the crumbs of the masters table, one might actually find that one is a brick in the tower of "political" reality, that one never wanted to build in the first place.
(But I know that certain Machiavellis like -Mr. Utnapishtim- will slyly disagree with this)

:)

#46 Lazarus Long

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Posted 14 February 2003 - 08:03 PM


Dolly, World's First Cloned Mammal, Dies

19 minutes ago

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - Dolly, the world's first cloned mammal, has died, her creators at Scotland's Roslin Institute said on Friday.

The six-year-old world famous sheep was given a lethal injection after veterinarians discovered she was suffering from a progressive lung disease. She died at about 1500 GMT.

Posted Image

Full Text and Links

#47 Bruce Klein

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Posted 14 February 2003 - 08:10 PM

The Roslin Institute said Dolly has been promised to the National Museum of Scotland and will be put on display in Edinburgh in due course.

Now that's interesting. Thanks Laz.

#48 Mind

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Posted 15 February 2003 - 01:18 AM

The most interesting part of Dolly's story is yet to come. What caused her death? If future clones (with short telomeres) die prematurely it would certainly add weight to the theory that telomeres are a significant biological clock.

#49 Bruce Klein

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Posted 15 February 2003 - 05:43 AM

Mind,
I've yet to understand if Cloning actually had an effect Dolly's lifespan. That's the key here. It seems that the scientists are still up in the air about this. While I did hear that her telomeres were 20% shorter than regular telomere plus she died at the average approx age of her donor cell. Thus, it seems the circumstantial evidence looks promising that telomeres do have a considerable impact on aging.

(Link Suggestion - down to earth intro to the cloning of dolly here: http://www.synapses....nce/clone.html)

As i read along here, I'm learning there are different methods to cloning and that the method used for Dolly was done during the 'G0' phase:
Posted Image
http://www.immortali...persephone.html

While more successful cloning procedure done during the GS1 phase resultedin a cow named 'Persephone'. This fella..

Posted Image
Persephone, an older clone made from a senescent cell, still going strong at the age of 10 months http://www.lef.org/f...00_clon_02.html

Interesting quote by Michael West from the above lef article:
----
Michael West: New stem cell technologies actually offer the promise of distributing new young cells throughout the body. One could imagine, for instance, the transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells into the bone marrow. Those cells have been shown to travel throughout the body to seed muscle tissues with new muscle cells, bone with new bone cells and so on.

LIFE EXTENSION FOUNDATION: So in other words, you would inject a particular kind of cell that is not muscle and not bone, and it would then find places where there is a deficiency in muscle cells and bone cells, somehow sensing this deficiency, then turning into muscle or bone cells to overcome the deficiency?

Michael West: Correct. That is all published data (16,17). These technologies could potentially allow you to restore back into aging patients stem cells that are the patients' own cells and would not be rejected, which have their whole life span ahead of them, and have the potential of distributing themselves throughout the body, seeding cells and tissues with new, young cells to replace those that are worn out.
----
More to the issue of cloning and telomere length... - BJK
----
West: We did not. However, Mark Westhusin's lab, at Texas A&M University, has done it. Mark, incidentally, is participating in a project to clone a dog, the Missyplicity Project (the dog's name is Missy). Mark has also been involved in cattle cloning. He managed to clone a steer that was 21 years old, which is an old animal. There was evidently a piece of skin that was removed from the animal and frozen away. Years later, and long after the steer was gone, it was remembered how great an animal it was. The original animal was called "Chance." They thawed some of the cells from this 21-year-old steer, years after it had died, and managed to clone it. They named the new animal "Second Chance," and again, it appears to be normal.

LEF: Did they look at telomere length in the cells of Second Chance?

West: I believe they have, and I believe that in Second Chance the telomeres were shortened, consistent with the Dolly results.
----

#50 Elohim

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Posted 24 February 2003 - 02:23 AM

They thawed some of the cells from this 21-year-old steer, years after it had died, and managed to clone it. They named the new animal "Second Chance," and again, it appears to be normal.

LEF: Did they look at telomere length in the cells of Second Chance?

West: I believe they have, and I believe that in Second Chance the telomeres were shortened, consistent with the Dolly results.


That's very interesting, but it begs the question: is the factor of telomere length of the same importance in each species, or does the significance vary?

#51 ocsrazor

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Posted 24 February 2003 - 03:28 AM

It absolutely does vary, telomere length is very important in some species but has almost no effect in others.

Best,
Ocsrazor

#52 Lazarus Long

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Posted 28 February 2003 - 06:26 AM

House Votes to Ban Human Cloning

Thu Feb 27, 7:10 PM ET

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to ban all forms of human cloning on Thursday, roundly defeating a rival bill that would allow the use of cloning technology for medical research.

The House passed a similar bill in 2001, but the Senate failed to pass any legislation on cloning. The issue once again lies in the Senate, where similar rival bills await passage.

The Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003, sponsored by Florida Republican Dave Weldon and Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, passed by a vote of 241 to 155 after several hours of debate.

It would ban all human cloning, including cloning to create a pregnancy or for medical research. It also would make it a crime to "receive or import a cloned human embryo or any product derived from a cloned human embryo," with fines of $1 million and 10 years in prison.

This last provision troubled opponents, who feared it could turn into criminals patients seeking treatments abroad that might result from embryonic stem cell research.

Michael Werner, vice president for bioethics at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry group, said the bill amounted to "overkill."

"If this draconian legislation becomes law, the anti-importation provisions would deny American patients the benefits of SCNT-based (somatic cell nuclear transfer or cloning) regenerative medicines developed abroad," Werner said in a statement.


BUSH WELCOMES VOTE

But President Bush applauded the vote. Bush has said he would veto anything less than a total ban on human cloning.

"Today's resounding bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives demonstrates concern for the profound moral and social issues posed by human cloning," Bush said in a statement.

"We must advance the promise and cause of medical science, including through ethical stem cell research, yet we must do so in ways that respect human dignity and help build a culture of life. I urge the Senate to act quickly on legislation banning all human cloning."

Last year legislation languished in an undecided Senate, but with Republicans now in the majority this could change.

Both bills have support from both Republicans and Democrats, as well as abortion-rights and anti-abortion backers. But the new Senate majority leader, Tennessee Republican Bill Frist, has said he supports a ban on all cloning, including therapeutic cloning.

Anti-abortion groups also welcomed the vote. "We applaud the House for acting quickly to prevent what would be the creation of human embryo farms in America," Family Research Council President Ken Connor said in a statement.

The House defeated an amendment, sponsored by Pennsylvania Republican Jim Greenwood, Florida Democrat Peter Deutsch and others, that would outlaw cloning to make a baby but specifically encourage therapeutic cloning.

Greenwood and other supporters say the technology has the potential to transform medicine.

At issue is the confusing and often emotional debate over whether a ball of cells created in a lab dish is a human life or merely human tissue.

The scientific community and patient advocates say while cloning does create an embryo, it has no chance of ever becoming a baby. The cluster of cells could be a source of embryonic stem cells -- cells that have the potential to regenerate any tissue or any organ in the body.

Religious and anti-abortion groups, and many politicians, argue that each cell cluster is a human life and should not be subjected to experimentation.

#53 Bruce Klein

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Posted 28 February 2003 - 07:00 AM

Anyone know if this thing will pass in the Senate? And what problems will we see if it does?

#54 Lazarus Long

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Posted 28 February 2003 - 07:22 AM

Life is immitating art to too great a degree. As of right now, and if this vote is a sample, the odds are stacked badly against what we are doing.

And BTW, we can thank our Raelian Friends for their part in helping to create the hysteria. Well, the damage is already done but I reiterate that it may be a good time for setting up offshore operations.

This is definitely a warning that some work is going to have to go underground to survive the coming period of repression at home.

The House defeated an amendment, sponsored by Pennsylvania Republican Jim Greenwood, Florida Democrat Peter Deutsch and others, that would outlaw cloning to make a baby but specifically encourage therapeutic cloning.


But President Bush applauded the vote. Bush has said he would veto anything less than a total ban on human cloning.

"Today's resounding bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives demonstrates concern for the profound moral and social issues posed by human cloning," Bush said in a statement.


Last year legislation languished in an undecided Senate, but with Republicans now in the majority this could change.



#55 Lazarus Long

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Posted 28 February 2003 - 05:23 PM

For the next bad news piece in this deteriorating chain of events. And please my wiser friends stop blaming the messenger on these.

Experts to Decide Future of Gene Therapy
1 hour, 42 minutes ago
Article with links
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Experts were meeting on Friday to decide the future of gene therapy experiments after learning that two French "bubble boys" cured using gene therapy had developed cancer.

The specialists in cancer, gene therapy and bone marrow transplants who advise the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided last October, after the first case was reported, that the benefits of gene therapy outweighed the risk of cancer.

But now that a second 3-year-old boy has developed leukemia, it is becoming clear that cancer is an inherent risk of the treatment, at least in this disease.

The meeting was being held 50 years to the day after Francis Crick and James Watson announced their discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.

While knowledge of genetics has in many cases transformed medicine, progress has often been slower than hoped. Gene therapy holds great promise, offering to cure disease by correcting faulty genes, but so far has produced few results.

The researchers at Necker Hospital in Paris had seen the first real success in gene therapy, curing 9 of 10 infant boys with a rare genetic disease called x-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). A 15-year-old boy was also treated but not helped by the gene therapy.

SCID patients are born without any working immune system. Without treatment, they once lived their short lives in sterile "bubbles" because any infection would kill them. A single genetic defect causes the syndrome.

It can be treated with bone marrow transplants, which are highly successful if done very early and with bone marrow from a relative whose tissue matches closely. But babies with no healthy matched relatives have fewer options.

The French researchers, led by Dr. Alain Fischer, used a retrovirus to carry normal copies of a gene to correct the defect in bone marrow stem cells, and then infused the cells back into the boys.

RANDOM EFFECTS OF VIRUS

But the virus they used inserts its genetic material randomly in cells. In the case of the two boys, and perhaps a third boy who has not developed cancer, the gene disrupted a sensitive area of the chromosome in a single cell.

The immune cell started out-of-control proliferation, eventually taking over all the other cells. This uncontrolled growth is the same as seen in leukemia.

The committee is trying to decide if there is a safer way to do the gene therapy, while still curing the children. Perhaps the viruses can be tinkered with to make them more controllable. Doctors may also be able to better choose the cells that are treated and put back into patients.

Other approaches dispense with viruses, using spheres of fat to deliver the DNA, or even using "naked" DNA.

Last October, the committee decided that gene therapy was the best hope for children who do not have a good bone marrow donor. They said the informed consent forms -- which parents and patients read and sign before taking part in medical experiments -- should warn clearly of the risk of cancer..

They also told investigators to carefully check patients to see if any of the viruses were integrating in the wrong place.

The boys were both treated soon after birth -- one at the age of one month and one at three months. Both developed leukemia around age 3.

Experts believe it is possible Fischer's team has had its remarkable success because they treat such young children. But it is also possible that babies are most susceptible to cancer, because their young immune systems are developing so rapidly.

Earlier this month the Recombinant Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health, which with the FDA regulates gene therapy, said gene therapy for SCID should for the time being be tried only in children who have not been cured by bone marrow transplants.

French gene therapy experiments are on hold while further tests are done on the patients. German authorities have put a hold on one experiment involving bone marrow cells, while Italy has halted all gene therapy for four months.

British authorities are deciding on a case-by-case basis whether to continue gene therapy experiments.

#56 kevin

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Posted 18 March 2003 - 06:55 AM

Silence of the clones
Genetic gagging order found at point when most clones falter.
11 March 2003
TOM CLARKE

Posted Image
The blastocyst, a hollow ball of rapidly dividing cells, implants in the uterus.
© SPL



A bevy of genes that are essential for normal embryo development fall silent during cloning, new research shows1. The genes could hold secrets to better cloning and help researchers to understand diseases such as cancer.

Cloning embryos from adult cells is a hit-and-miss process. Most failures occur just a few days into development when the blastocyst - a hollow ball of rapidly dividing cells - implants in the uterus. In the process that created Dolly the sheep, just 29 of the 277 eggs injected with adult DNA successfully passed this crucial, early milestone.

"These failures are very important to the future of therapeutic cloning," explains cloning pioneer Rudolf Jaenisch at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most cloning researchers are interested not in producing whole animals, but in making blastocysts as a source of cloned embryonic stem cells for treating disease and studying cell development.

Jaenisch and his colleagues have found that 70-80 genes that are normally expressed in developing mouse embryos are either inactive or underactive in embryos cloned from adult cells. It's not clear what all of these genes do, but they are usually switched on around the same time as another gene, called Oct4.

Oct4 enables embryos to make pluripotent cells, which can form any tissue. So some of the genes that Jaenisch's team has identified are probably involved in pluripotency too, argues Wolf Reik, a developmental geneticist at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, UK.

"The crucial step now is to understand what silences these genes," says Reik. It is probably quite fundamental - if, during development, adult cells did not switch these plutripotency genes off, runaway cell growth would lead to cancer. Indeed, several of the genes that Jaenisch has identified are also expressed in tumours.

Clones created from adult cells are naturally suppressing what would normally be dangerous genes, says Reik.

Unravelling the genetic riddle will be difficult, warns stem-cell researcher Joanna Maldonado-Saldivia of the University of Cambridge, UK. "This work shows that lots of genes go wrong after cloning," she says. But so many are unidentified that it could take years to discover their functions.

Even if the mysteries of the silenced genes can be solved, cloning whole animals will remain a challenge, as there is a lot more that can go awry in the later stages of development.

"These genes could be a major cause of embryo failure, but not normal development - a host of other genes could be responsible for that," says Jaenisch. Although Dolly's creators produced 29 blastocyst embryos, only one stayed the course to become a live sheep.


References
Bortvin, A. Incomplete reactivation of Oct-4 related genes in mouse embryos cloned from somatic nuclei. Development, 130, 1673 - 1680, (2003). |Article|

#57 Lazarus Long

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Posted 09 April 2003 - 01:28 PM

It appears the Raëlian's may be on to something. Cloning does seem to lead to a one state of immortality. Well sort of, it's not longevity but it is enduring.

I think this article at least demonstrates some inherent advantages of mummification over cryogenics. It's much easier to dance with the dead if they aren't likely to melt all over you, or break into little pieces.

http://story.news.ya...ritain_dolly_dc

Cloned Sheep Dolly, Now Stuffed, Goes on Display
21 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - She was created by biotechnicians, debated by theologians and finally put to sleep by veterinarians. Now Dolly the sheep has been stuffed by taxidermists and put on display before the public.

The stuffed remains of Dolly -- the first cloned adult mammal -- were unveiled on Wednesday at the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

"She's looking great," said a spokeswoman for Edinburgh's Royal Museum where she now stands. "She's on all fours and her head is slightly tilted to one side."

"She used to get a lot of human visitors," she added. "And that's the expression she always used to great them."

Dolly's birth in July 1996 was kept secret for months while her creators checked her lineage, but the eventual announcement, in February 1997, sent shockwaves around the world. Now cloning of farm animals has become almost routine.

Unlike her hardy mountain-dwelling cousins, Dolly -- a breed called a Finn Dorset -- was hand-fed and lived her life indoors until she was put down in February, aged six, after a severe chest infection.

The full result of her autopsy is expected later this week.

Dolly was made from a frozen cell taken from the mammary gland of her mother/twin who died several years before her birth. Creator Ian Wilmut said he named her after Dolly Parton, the American singer famous for her own mammaries.

While Dolly is best known for being an almost precise copy, she was in one way unique: she was the sole success of an experiment that tried to clone 276 sheep embryos.

The festival, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA, will be fully opened to the public from Friday.

#58 Lazarus Long

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Posted 10 April 2003 - 12:31 AM

http://story.news.ya...ence_banteng_dc

Scientists Euthanize Cloned Baby Banteng
Wed Apr 9,11:33 AM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of a pair of cloned bantengs, a rare species of Asian cattle, has been euthanized because it was abnormally large, its creators said on Wednesday.

The banteng calf was born twice the normal size, a common cause of death in cloned animals, said Dr. Robert Lanza of Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technologies.

"The second animal we euthanized yesterday," Lanza said in a telephone interview. "A banteng should only be 40 pounds (20 kg). The first calf weighed 40 pounds (20 kg) but the second was 80 pounds (36 kg), almost twice what is normal."

Despite this, the larger calf looked healthy at first. "It was snuggling and then it took a nosedive. The vets at the zoo decided for humane reasons that it should be euthanized," he said.

The two bantengs were cloned from the San Diego Zoo's "frozen zoo," a project launched before anyone knew whether cloning would work. Bantengs, enormous cattle that once thrived in the dense forests of Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia and elsewhere in southeast Asia, are now endangered. The zoo, working with cloning leader ACT, hoped to resurrect a male that died in 1980 without ever breeding. They want to use his genes to breathe new life into the inbred gene pool of captive bantengs, Lanza said.

The experiment, a collaboration including ACT, the San Diego Zoo, Iowa State University and Trans Ova Genetics, worked in part because bantengs are closely related to domestic cattle, said Lanza. They cloned frozen cells from the long-dead banteng using cow eggs, and used a domestic cow as the surrogate mother.Cloning is fraught with problems and Lanza said the calf's abnormalities did not come as a surprise.

"You don't ever know with cloned animals -- the first few days are crucial," Lanza said. The process of cloning can lead to an abnormal placenta -- the organ that nourishes a developing embryo and fetus. Many cloned animals have been born large, and this in turn can lead to fatal heart conditions and failures of other organs.

"It not uncommon at all in cloning. It is called large calf syndrome," said Lanza. It is also one of the reasons that most cloning experts are reluctant to ever try cloning a human being.

Wildlife groups have spoken out against the experiment, saying the best way to preserve a species is to save or resurrect its environment and allow breeding populations to re-establish.

"Until the threats that caused a species to become endangered in the first place -- poaching, habitat loss, loss of prey base -- are addressed, creating animals in the lab doesn't solve the problem," said Jan Vertefeuille, a spokeswoman for the World Wildlife Fund.

But Lanza said this was not the intention of the zoo, which wanted to preserve captive populations of bantengs. "The goal here wasn't to get a clone per se but to get the genes back into the population," he said.

#59 DJS

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Posted 18 June 2003 - 05:52 PM

And the battle rages on...

AMA Backs Cloning for Research Purposes
Tue Jun 17, 7:53 PM ET
By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO - The American Medical Association endorsed cloning for research purposes Tuesday, putting the nation's largest organization of doctors officially at odds with the Bush administration.

The policy, adopted without debate at the AMA's annual meeting, says cloning for research purposes is ethical. But the policy allows doctors who oppose the practice to refuse to perform it.

The measure does not support reproductive cloning and is strong in its call for proper oversight.

This is the first time the 260,000-member AMA has taken a position on what is known as therapeutic cloning.

The Bush administration opposes all cloning, research or reproductive, and the U.S. House earlier this year passed a White House-backed ban on any form of the practice.

"The AMA is not bucking the president," said Dr. Michael Goldrich, incoming chairman of the committee that drafted the cloning report. "The AMA is giving guidance to physicians."

The proposal focused on a laboratory procedure designed to create human embryos for their stem cells, which are master cells that can potentially grow into any type of human tissue. Scientists believe such cells could someday be used to treat a wide range of human diseases.

Such embryos could theoretically develop into a human if implanted in a woman's uterus. But the embryos are destroyed in the laboratory when the stem cells are taken.

University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan said the AMA may have been emboldened to endorse the procedure because of recent research challenging whether such early embryos could ever develop into human life.

"The AMA is conservative, and they know this is a controversial subject," Caplan said. "What they're saying is there's enough hope here for finding cures that we have to speak out."

The proposal received wide support from doctors and medical groups at the meeting, including the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. A National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites) panel last year also said cloning for research should be allowed.

Opponents, however, likened the procedure to abortion.

Calling it medically ethical is "totally inappropriate ... when a number of us believe that human beings start with two cells," said Dr. John McMahon of Helena, Mont.

In other action Tuesday, the AMA also adopted a policy against allowing drug company representatives to sit in in the examining room unless the patient has given consent.

The drug companies maintain that the practice, known as "shadowing," is educational; opponents say it violates patients' privacy.

Barbara Felt-Miller, a former sales representative for two major drug companies, told doctors that the practice made her uncomfortable, especially when she witnessed patients in their paper gowns undergoing routine but intimate procedures, including pelvic and rectal exams.

"It was embarrassing, almost voyeuristic that I'm sitting in on these exams," she said in an interview. "I can't imagine how it feels for the patient."

Felt-Miller said some doctors never asked patients for permission.

But Ed Sagebiel, a spokesman for Eli Lilly and Co., said the AMA's policy echoes the company's own, which says patients' consent should always be obtained before a sales rep is allowed to observe.

Click HERE to rent this GENETICS advertising spot to support LongeCity (this will replace the google ad above).

#60 Lazarus Long

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Posted 01 July 2003 - 05:19 PM

Nature Reviews Genetics 4, 490 (2003); doi:10.1038/nrg1129

Printable PDF
[1639K]

EPIGENETICS
Cloning senescence


Bernd Pulverer

Editor, Nature Cell Biology


Cloning by nuclear transfer (NT) of adult somatic nuclei into enucleated oocytes involves epigenetic reprogramming to allow the expression of gene programmes appropriate for early development. One of the key questions is whether cellular ageing is reset during reprogramming. It certainly seems to be, at least at the organismal level, given the reports of a relatively normal lifespan for many animals cloned by somatic cell NT. Previous reports have suggested that cattle fetuses cloned from cultured donor cells at, or near, senescence grow into healthy calves and yield fibroblasts with extended lifespans and telomere length relative to cells from age-matched control fetuses. Now, John Clark and colleagues revisit this crucial question by carrying out nuclear-transfer experiments in sheep, using cell lines with a range of proliferative capacities. Remarkably, primary cell lines derived from cloned progeny invariably had the same proliferative capacity as the donor cell lines. Furthermore, the actual age of the donor nucleus does not seem to alter the lifespan of the NT clone-derived cell lines.

To assess the rate with which the cloned cells age, the authors turned to the telomeres because they are eroded as the cell divides and, unless replenished, are thought to contribute to cellular senescence once they reach a crucial length. Based on the inverse correlation between telomere erosion rates and proliferative vigour of the cell lines the authors suggest that the rate of telomere shortening determines lifespan.

Importantly, the rates of telomere erosion of the lines derived after NT cloning closely matched those of the parental cultures. These data are consistent with previous reports from cattle, in that telomeres from donor cells near senescence are extended upon NT; however, they do not reproduce the claim that bovine telomeres are extended upon cloning relative to non-cloned controls. These data are also consistent with a previous claim that the first cloned sheep, Dolly, had shorter telomeres than control animals of the same age. Evidently, cellular senescence also correlates with telomere shortening in animals cloned by NT. Indeed, the rate of telomere erosion might determine the lifespan of both donor and cloned sheep fibroblasts.

The authors conclude that proliferative capacity and rates of telomere erosion are conserved during nuclear transfer, and are therefore likely to be a genetically determined property in sheep. A crucial question that remains unanswered is whether there is any effect on overall organismal ageing or pathologies such as cancer. How and if replicative senescence and telomere biology are related to ageing remains an important frontier for future investigation.


References and links

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER
Clark, A. J. et al. Proliferative lifespan is conserved after nuclear transfer. Nature Cell Biol. 5, 535-538 (2003) | Article | PubMed| ChemPort |

© 2003 Nature Publishing Group




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