Individual Topical Paper Draft
Human Cloning
• Executive Summary
1. What is cloning?
• Simple definition of cloning is copying (Raeburn, 2002)
• Creating identical genetic copy of an organism ( Staicu, 2012)
2. Reproductive cloning vs Therapeutic cloning
• Reproductive cloning , Creating another identical individual (Saint-Paul, 2003)
• Therapeutic cloning , Creating human tissue (Saint-Paul, 2003)
3. Arguments for and against cloning
• Identification
• Curing chronic diseases
• Ethical issues
• High-ability offspring
4. Where are we heading?
• Laws and regulation of different countries
• Leaning towards therapeutic cloning
Background and introduction
• History of cloning
• Dolly the sheep (1997)
• Cows by Japanese and French Scientist (1998)
• Mice (1998)
• Pigs (2000)
• Year 2002, genetically engineering allows pig organs to be transplanted into humans
• Process of cloning
• Somatic nucleus transfer
• Stem-cell cloning
Arguments against cloning
• Implications of cloning
• Destruction of embryos. Equivalent to killing a human. “Humans are created since conception” (Pope John Paul II quote)
• Risk of failure. Embryo implanted with donor’s nucleus will have the same length of chromosome as the donor. Chromosome shorten as we age. (Saint-Paul 2003)
• Potentiality – Every embryo has the potential to become a human. However, scientist has argued that the potential is zero as the embryo is not place inside a womb (Brown, 2009)
• Identification – Uniqueness issue. However, claims are inaccurate and does not explain in situations of embryo splitting. E.g twins. (Morales, 2009)
Arguments for cloning
• Medical Benefits – Treating chronic diseases like Alzheimer and Parkinson. (Raeburn, 2002)
• Eliminating the risk of organ rejection. (Brown, 2009)
• Test of medical drugs – Does not needs to test on animals, streamlining the process of drug’s development. (Zneimer, S.D, 2014)
• Infertility – Infertile couples are able to have children that are genetically identical. However, there are new fertilisation progress such as In-vitro fertilisation (Staicu, 2012)
• Eliminating recessive genes and create high-ability offspring (Saint-Paul, 2003)
Changes in the biomedical industry
1. Revolutionary change in the development of new drugs. Increasing accuracy and efficiency of drugs. Eliminating uncertainty. (Zneimer, S.D, 2014)
2. Disruptive changes in the industry. Removing the need to search for suitable donor. Old treatment methods are render obsolete. E.g Treatment for cancer (Zneimer, S.D, 2014)
Where the world is heading?
• Greater recognition in the research of stem-cell technology.
• Research is not limited to embryonic stem cells; there are alternative stem cells such as induced stem cells and somatic stem cells.
• More stem-cell research agency set up globally E.g Stem Cell society Singapore
- Striking a balance between ethics and science
- U.S lifted the ban on stem-cell research at year 2006. Reproductive cloning research is criminalized in the U.S
- England allows the use of embryos under the age of 14 days
- California stem-cell research agency only uses embryos age 5 days or below
- Ban of reproductive cloning by the international society for stem-cell research
Conclusion
- There are many beliefs that supports or are against human cloning E.g Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and etc, and we cannot ignore them.
- Life is govern by belief. Even law is created by human’s morality and belief
- However, as technology advances, mind-sets are changed. The development of therapeutic cloning has seen a paradigm shift. Laws are re-written and countries starts to invest in this industry.
- Efforts are made to ensure ethical issues are not compromise. E.g using adult stem-cells and sustaining embryo.
- Endeavour in this field of research to raise quality of living (Human development)
Firstly,for the Executive Summary: i feel that you may have a tad too many points to elaborate on if you are going to put in all those points as the executive should be kept short and sweet and should give the general gist of your report.
ReplyDeleteWhereas for your background information, when you are talking about it, remember to mention how they were created and how these technology came about it instead of just mentioning the different inventions(e.g. Dolly the Sheep 1997, etc.).
Moving on, perhaps when you are talking about the implications of cloning, you could separate them into different aspects of implications- for example, the social aspect, the economic aspect and political aspect,etc. Perhaps this could better bring out the importance of implications that cloning may bring about.
Furthermore, personally i feel that maybe you could add on a little bit on the part of Future Considerations. Maybe you could talk a little on the possible future implications that are salient towards changing our human society. As human cloning is probably going to be a revolutionary phase of improvement, it is inevitable that it will bring along its downsides. So perhaps you may want to mention possible future implications that we, as humans may want to note to give your report more depth.
On a side note, it is a really enticing and interesting article and i certainly can't wait to see your final product :D ALL THE BEST GX!
Hi Guang Xiang!
ReplyDeleteI think that your draft is good and the structure is there. You covered quite a lot under each subheading. Also, I think you have put in effort to cite the source of your points, and this is really good because it will be very useful when you write out your actual paper. The topic of human cloning that you chose is really interesting and the points that you raised are rather comprehensive.
I have the following suggestions that you may want to take into consideration when you do your next draft:
1. I think it would be good to include how human cloning is a disruptive technology, and in what way it is disruptive.
a.How can it change lives?
b.How big of an impact will it be to the world as a whole?
c.Will this technology aid those living in developing countries, or is this technology only available/ accessible for the rich?
2. For the arguments for and against cloning, you may want to consider
a.Giving a brief explanation of how human cloning can be applied to achieve such benefits.
b.Because, I think that the main focus can be placed on the implications of such technology in these areas.
c.Also, I think it would be helpful if you could include images/videos to further illustrate the process of human cloning
3. I like the point you included about striking a balance between ethics and science, because I think it is very important to identify these regulations. However, I think more issues could be addressed under this section, so as to strengthen this argument. Some issues are:
a.Will it be possible to clone an entire human being eventually? (Because, I think right now, nobody has done that, either due to technology limitation or certain regulations)
b.And if so, what do you think could be the repercussions?
c.Can regulations implemented by government agencies truly control the development of this technology, such that it is ethical? Will regulations be sufficient to stop/ slow down development?
4. I think it would be good to have a final stand on human cloning, i.e. are you for or against this technology? I think that this would be helpful in shaping your argument as well as your paper.
In conclusion, I enjoyed reading your draft because your points are concise and easy to understand. I look forward to seeing your actual report. All the best for your final report!!!