Scientist Claims to Produce Human Clone

Top Stories - AP

Scientist Claims to Produce Human Clone



HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - A chemist connected to a group that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials claimed Friday to have produced the world's first human clone, a baby girl named Eve.

The baby was born Thursday, said Brigitte Boisselier, head of Clonaid, the company that claimed success in the project. She wouldn't say where the baby was born.

She said the baby is a clone of the 30-year-old American woman who donated the DNA for the cloning process. If confirmed, that would make the child an exact genetic duplicate of her mother.

Boisselier, who spoke at a Friday morning news conference, did not immediately present DNA evidence showing a genetic match between mother and daughter however. That omission leaves her claim scientifically unsupported.

"The baby is very healthy. She's doing fine," Boisellier said. "We're very happy parents."

She said the baby will go home in three days, and an independent expert will take DNA samples from the baby to prove she had been cloned. Those test results are expected within a week after the testing.

She said the mother carried to term.

Most scientists, already skeptical of Boisellier's ability to produce a human clone, will probably demand to know exactly how the DNA testing was done before they believe the announcement.

Clonaid was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by Claude Vorilhon, a former French journalist and leader of a group called the Raelians. Vorilhon and his followers claim aliens visiting him in the 1970s revealed they had created all life on Earth through genetic engineering.

Scientist Claims to Produce Human Clone

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I don't think we should get ahead of ourselves on this one. This announcement came with no proof. No matter what your standing on the issue, we cannot start a true debate on the matter until we know if this baby (if there is one) is actually a clone or not. The results of DNA testing will be done within about a week.

That's when the controversy will start.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I think this fact alone makes it a good idea to remain VERY skeptical about their claims. Yeah, they say don't judge a book by it's cover, but I'm not holding my breath for this one. Once its proven I'll believe them, but since all they have right now is a claim, I'm doubtful.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Regardless of the veracity of Clonaid's claim, can you really doubt that there will be human clones in the next couple of years?

I think the controversy is here and it's time to consider questions like:

• Does this count as "conception" and, therefore, are clones really "human"?
• If a clone-male and a clone-female mate and produce kids (thru natural means), who are really the biological parents?
• What will this do to DNA evidence?

Just a few things to think about...

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Lets be very VERY skeptical!!! We need to legitimately document the extraction of DNA for the cells of the mother and the clone and verify a match. This needs to be done to prove with out a doubt that these comet-chasing cultists really did do this

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

If they did then lets all hope that humans re-grow their telemerse like mice when there clone. Also let pray that certain gene were not improperly activated or deactivated in this (possible) clone.

I personally feel that cloning would be best used in making new organs and cell types for people and I don’t think we are scientifically or ethically ready to safely clone people.

 

Answer to 1: Yes, kind off

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

, well good one there

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

2: that can be determined, even the clones have slight genetic differences from the originals… to find these differences though would be quite expensive, it might require a nuclide to nuclide matching rather then restriction mapping, Contig, sts or probing. Infact it would be so hard that without cheap and high speed genomic of the years to come I would say that it would be impossible.

3: we would need to read the genomes of many cell for both the parent and clone and see which geneticlly beget the other through mapping mutations... like I said not cheap or quick.

 

But can you clone just the organs? Or do you have to clone the whole person and then harvest the organs?

 

You can produce MOST organs without cloning at all. It is easiest to do with the liver as the liver naturally will grow back if half is removed. Many others can be produced through the treating of stem cells.

 

yes we could and have. Cloning makes stem cells that would have no immunity responce from there parent host, this making them the best possible option for organ farming. these are the organs clone made through stem cell to date:
-liver
-pacratic nodes
-blader
-skin
-cartalige
so forth...

 

Elaborate -- how is that done? I'm still not sure whether you're saying that you clone the human and then harvest the organs or clone the organs.

 

1. We clone a person by taken a cell from them and placing it in an egg cell (ova) that we remove the nuclei from.

2. We take one of cells from the 2-8 celled embryo and chemical treat it to become not a person but a cell type such as liver cells, nerve cells, so forth. What’s left of the embryo is frozen for future reference or to make more cell lines

In conclusion: no WHOLE bodies are cloned the processes is as ethically evil as test tube babies.

 

Raelian leader says cloning first step to immortality

 

Why, oh god did it have to be these people to make the first human clone why could it not be some slightly less insane organization... as a biochemist I’m going to curl up into a fetal position and suck my thumb now!

I have so many thing I want to object to these people about that I can’t even think of were to start.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

It had to be these people first, for the simple reason that most researchers have moral scruples about trying out cloning on humans at a time when the procedure is highly experimental, and almost certain to produce sickly, defective infants. Religions are very good at getting people to overcome their moral scruples.

And scruples having been overcome, I'm reasonably sure that a group of researchers could indeed have managed this feat pretty quickly. A lot of lines of inquiry open up if you don't care about the moral implications of what you're doing.

They say that they cloned the child from one of the mother's skin cells, and one of her eggs. A better test would have been to have her bear somebody else's clone; Even if they do turn out to be genetically identical, it could just mean that Clonaid has found a way to stimulate parthogenesis in humans. Interesting, but not nearly as significant.

I'm maintaining an attitude of skepticism until the gene tests are back. And hoping like heck that if she IS a clone, this little girl is perfectly healthy. One sick baby would be all the ammo Bush would need to ram a ban on cloning through Congress.

 

And of course the girl just HAS to have tenticals and compound eyes. CLATU BARATA NICTU

 

that would be amazing even more so then cloning!!!

I don't know about how good it would be thouhg: If you could make women capable of "binary fission" then us males are in BIG @#$%ing trouble!

 

Of course there has been debate even before this claim. I'm saying that if indeed this is a clone (which I believe is unlikely) than every form of communications will be on fire with debate.

This is unlike any form of IFV or fertility treatment, because cloning allows for asexual reproduction, something that isn't part of mamillian, and further human kind and isn't needed. Humans were never ment to reproduce asexually, plus this will open a massive can of worms in respect to morality and ethics.

 

Okay, lets say that the Raelians accomplished what they said they did making
the question of whether or not to clone moot: How does it affect the anti-abor-
tionists' position that there are people willing to adopt a child carried to term?

If given the choice, would an infertile couple choose adopting over cloning?

Curious

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

what how the @#%$ would cloning effect the pro-choice/life conflicted?

 

Adoption. There isn't a point in cloning, most people can have children through sexual reproduction. For those who are infertile there are millions of orphans out there that need parents.

Cloning is horrible. Period.