Why isn't cloning the answer?

seek said:
more animals isnt always the solution, for instance one significant factor in why the cheetah is endagered is because they need so much hunting ground, and wander onto namibian farmers land, who then shoot the cheetahs.
Click to expand...


Plus the fact they are all genetically similar so they tend to be susceptible to diseases and other effects of inbreeding.
 
It was my understanding that cloning Dolly had been something of a disaster - did the animal not develop various illnesses as a result of the cloning (anyone with more info may be able to talk about this more). In which case, it isn't a solution at all - as discussed, you just create genetically inferior animals, at least with the scientific knowledge at the moment.
 
I think everyone is missing the point talking about genes! Cloning is a way of making an identical version, it is NOT a way to increase numbers! If you want to increase numbers then bread the normal way or use IVF if there are other difficulties. Cloning takes ages and has a very low success rate.
 
oxist258 said:
It was my understanding that cloning Dolly had been something of a disaster - did the animal not develop various illnesses as a result of the cloning (anyone with more info may be able to talk about this more). In which case, it isn't a solution at all - as discussed, you just create genetically inferior animals, at least with the scientific knowledge at the moment.
Click to expand...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_the_sheep
 
Not that Wikipedia should be trusted anymore than a random post on a forum but it has this to add:
Cloning is now considered a promising tool for preserving endangered species, usually by those who do not work in species conservation. Most animal conservation professionals point out that cloning does not alleviate the problems of loss of genetic diversity (see inbreeding) and habitat, ergo must be considered an experimental technology for the time being, and all in all would only rarely be worth the cost, which on a per-individual basis far exceeds conventional techniques such as captive breeding or embryo transfer.
Click to expand...
 
Cloning would only damage the gene pool if the clone ever mated with animals that were related to the orginal animal. Depending on exactly how endangered the species is this shouldn't be a major problem. I think you need only a couple of hundred starter animals to develop a reasonable gene pool. Just make sure that the clone is introduced to a different population to it's donar.

If it's something that's really on the verge of extinction (20 animals left or something) then I don't think they have much chance... best you could do would be to use IVF to cultivate new offspring that are as genetically diverse as possible and just hope you strike lucky till random mutation manages to bump up the gene pool. Alternatively you could try cross species breeding if there's another species that's suitable. It wouldn't be the same animal exactly but it'd be part of it.

The real trouble with cloning is that it's very expensive and is by no means a reliable process yet... most of the embryos fail to develop and those that do can be subject to some rather unpleasent genetic defects later in life, defects that might actually do more harm to the rest of the species than good if it managed to mate.

Possibly in a decade or two we'll be able to produce perfect clones, but at the moment the physical trauma on the cells used to make a clone seems to do damage to the DNA itself, potentially causing any number of defects.
 
Jumpingmedic said:
Possibly in a decade or two we'll be able to produce perfect clones, but at the moment the physical trauma on the cells used to make a clone seems to do damage to the DNA itself, potentially causing any number of defects.
Click to expand...
Even if we could produce perfect clones, how would help increase the numbers of a species? It would still be quicker to do it the regular way.
 
clv101 said:
Even if we could produce perfect clones, how would help increase the numbers of a species? It would still be quicker to do it the regular way.
Click to expand...
and tbh there would STILL be some fault occuring at SOME point, and the clones themselves would STILL be surseptable to anything the one they where cloned from was.
 
Gilly said:
Its a fair question though.

You take 3 pandas in China, you clone them. You send the three clones to London zoo, Los Angeles zoo and Singapore zoo (just pulled them out my ass for purposes of example) and mate them with pandas they already have.

Where's the problem? You're spread the gene pool apart so you won't have the same genetics across the board.
Click to expand...

oooo-K I THINK everyones missing the point here

Cloning is HUGELY complex process, you carnt 'just clone' an animal and expect i to work 1st time no problems, end up with a perfect clone situation......

Notice there has only been one 'successful' clone ? (dolly the sheep) they say it was a success as it lived to adulthood, but as some know now there are some REALLY odd things happening to it, along the lines of its aged 2 quickly, some say it aged rapidly to the age of the origonal clone, or that it, even at a few days old had 'old dna' from the clone, it would grow and reach adult hood naturally, but have the body of a much older sheep in regard to its dna/rna/cell organels

Anyways ranting on abit here.......basically its hard to clone animals, the more complex, the harder it becomes, we simply dont have the technology yet to clone animals easly, quick, reliably and without complications
 
Combat squirrel said:
oooo-K I THINK everyones missing the point here

Cloning is HUGELY complex process, you carnt 'just clone' an animal and expect i to work 1st time no problems, end up with a perfect clone situation......

Notice there has only been one 'successful' clone ? (dolly the sheep) they say it was a success as it lived to adulthood, but as some know now there are some REALLY odd things happening to it, along the lines of its aged 2 quickly, some say it aged rapidly to the age of the origonal clone, or that it, even at a few days old had 'old dna' from the clone, it would grow and reach adult hood naturally, but have the body of a much older sheep in regard to its dna/rna/cell organels

Anyways ranting on abit here.......basically its hard to clone animals, the more complex, the harder it becomes, we simply dont have the technology yet to clone animals easly, quick, reliably and without complications
Click to expand...
i dont think everyones missing the point... especially as all of those points have already been raised. :p
 
Once you get down to the point of needing cloning to keep a species alive I think its already too late. The science of cloning isnt exactly complete and how many generations of clones before it becomes impossible to clone again. If I recall correctly with humans you need at least 64 people half and half for a viable gene pool and that is assuming pologomy with at least 10 partners.
 
clv101 said:
Even if we could produce perfect clones, how would help increase the numbers of a species? It would still be quicker to do it the regular way.
Click to expand...

Cloning could increase the ratio of female animals to males. This would make the natural breeding process much more productive.
 
this point has been only lightly touched upon, but i'm not sure its gotten through yet.

let me begin:
as a creature is created (i'm talking about when the first cell of compound DNA is formed) the DNA starts to decay.
this is currently accepted as the reason why people age.

if you clone a creature using "old" DNA, all the DNA in that creature will be "old".

this was noticed with Dolly the sheep, who was cloned from a 6 year old sheep.

many people noticed that Dolly rapidly aged to what looked like a 6 (or so) year old ewe, and died at the age of 6 (omg, 666 *** dev1lz0r5) which is a short life for a sheep.

something much more promising (in my opinion) is DNA synthesis, which is really cool (DIY creatures anyone?)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom