First Human Clone Born? 667
slantyyz writes "A religious cult, the Raelians, has claimed that the birth of first human clone is one of theirs. While this hasn't been corroborated yet, it's making headlines in Canada, where the cult is based. There's supposed to be a press conference on Friday in Hollywood. This story just may have legs."
another news link (Score:3, Informative)
Saw this earlier today. Probably based on the same news feed, but what the hey. Here you go. [wnd.com]
Raelians == UFO Cult (Score:5, Informative)
In my neighorhood for quite some time the Raelians have been trying to recruit ppl. They drive around in this van with sparkling stickers - kind of like a moving target. I got one of their fliers one day and had quite chuckle. I don't think they are too far off Scientologists either. There is some info on the Raelians here [skepdic.com].
Newsworthy? (Score:2, Informative)
By the way, did I mention I performed successful cold fusion experiments?
Sounds better than Scientology (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sounds better than Scientology (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Silly People Don't Realize... (Score:5, Informative)
Mammalian cloning is not a trivial thing to do -- there are only a handful of labs in the world that can make it work. It requires specialized equipment and cell lines, an excellent tissue culture setup and a tremendous degree of technical skill.
It's not like making beer, where you buy a bunch of things and mix them together in your basement. A Dr. Evil-like figure with tremendous money and resources could pull it off, but it would be prohibitive for some random loon.
Re:Silly People Don't Realize... (Score:5, Informative)
No.
Clones are, by definition, genetic doubles. The whole point is that clones aren't a combination of genes through the fertilization of an egg by sperm. Rather, a clone contains *exactly* the same gene material as its original. Thus, even the offspring of a brother and sister would not be a clone, since it would not have identical DNA to either its mother or father.
Simply by the fact that one pair must have XX (yeah, I'm going to ignore the relatively rare XXY and XXX) genes and the other XY genes in order to mate, it is impossible for the two parents to have identical genese, let alone their offspring.
Even if a pair of male twins were to mate with two female twins, it's more likely than not that their offspring would not have identical genes.
Re:Silly People Don't Realize... (Score:5, Informative)
Learning how to set these markers to their original settings may be the fountain of youth, or not... (that moral quandry is left for the reader to decide...) However, I think that if someone were to try to greatly extend their life, they'd have to start early (mid 20's maybe) though personally, I don't feel 80 years is long enough for me to learn all that I want to learn...
Re:Raelians == UFO Cult (Score:2, Informative)
The group's headquarters, called UFO Land, are located in Valcourt, Que., about 200 km east of Montreal."
I have to agree. These guys come in pretty low on the credibility meter, although ABC and the BBC are carrying the story. These are the same folks who announced that US and Korean scientists implanted an embryo in a Korean woman in July.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/21
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/07/25/33137
I know I've read of others claiming to have cloned a human, to be born this year. They usually come across as crackpots. Of course I wonder if the "crackpopts" are claiming it, what are the "non-crackpots" up to? I wouldn't be surprised if it has already happened.
Telomeres (Score:5, Informative)
As far as other defects are concerned, you must remember that you are moving delicate strands of DNA from one place and putting it somewhere else. There is no guarantee that the DNA you pinched is viable to begin with, though it may function well enough for that differentiated cell to work properly.
Re:Silly People Don't Realize... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Telomeres (Score:2, Informative)
Telomers don't just show the age, they're the buffers at the end of our DNA. When each cell undergoes mitosis the process damages the end of the telomer. Once the telomer gets too short the process starts eating into the DNA itself, which then causes the cells to reproduce incorrectly. Thus we age. We've discovered a species of Turtle that doesn't seem to age. In fact it gets healthier as time goes passes. I'll try and find the article, it was in either Scientific American or Discover.
Re:Cult? What kind of cult? (Score:3, Informative)
religion: A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
nearly every belief can be categorized as religious...its all about devotion and faith, it doesnt need a divine or supernatural power. its the belief that matters...
id say aliens cloning themselves to create humans is just as powerful a 'belief' as an omnipotent god.
Re:Sounds better than Scientology (Score:2, Informative)
Extremely bad idea (Score:5, Informative)
There is a easy to understand FAQ [bbsrc.ac.uk] on the Roslin Institute web site written by the people that actually cloned Dolly. Here are some interesting highlights:
Are clone embryos like IVF and normal pregnancies?
Not so far. The scientists at the Roslin Institute, who pioneered this work, have repeatedly found that the clone foetuses grow much larger than normal ones, and there is a much higher chance of the pregnancy failing, of stillbirth, or of forced Caesarean sections. Dolly was the one successful pregnancy of more than 277 embryos.
What do the experts think? "I think you are always going to run the risk of having aging DNA," says Professor Lord Robert Winston, an IVF pioneer. "I would hate to think of a child of mine being cloned because I think it would be very likely he would have an accelerated aging process." Dr Jamie Grifo, director of the division of reproductive endocrinology at New York University, says: "Cloning is no better than any of the other treatments that are out there. A biological child is the husband's sperm, the wife's egg. A clone is not a biological child." Dr David Stevens, of the Christian Medical and Dental Society, asks: "Are we really willing to sacrifice hundreds of embryos - developing human beings - to make one baby who may suffer monstrous consequences?"
So, there are two very important points that must be stressed. The first is that there is a high percentage probability of genetic defect supported by further experiments [biomedcentral.com]. Think of the threat of genetic abnormalities in a fetus that managed to survive as much higher than if you had children with immediate family members.
The second is that each cell has an "age" that is determined by the number of times that a cell has divided. If you use DNA from adult cells that have divided many times, than all of the cells cloned from that DNA will be older. A cell can only dived around 50 times before it dies at which point you reach the Hayflick Limit [sciencewatch.com]. Although there are ways to prolong the life of cell lines similar to the way cancer spreads through a body, I doubt that this group of individuals thought of adding telomeres back to the end of the chromosomes that would be used to clone a human baby.
Re:Telomeres (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No confirmation.... (Score:3, Informative)
From CNN.. (Score:2, Informative)
The group's scientific director said the child was born Thursday in an unnamed country. Clonaid was founded by a religious movement called the Raelians, the doctrine of which believes that life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials.
If the cloning assertion is true, the birth would be the first ever human clone. Brigitte Boisselier, scientific director of Clonaid, made her statement at a news conference and has arranged for a physicist named Michael Guillen, former science correspondent for ABC News, to independently verify the claim.
Boisselier offered no immediate proof of her claim -- or photographs of the baby. She said the baby is healthy, and that the whole family is "very happy." She also said the baby's grandmother thinks she looks just like her mother.
She says 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 results are expected within a week after the testing.
Boisselier had told a congressional committee last year that she believed she had the knowledge to produce a human clone in the near future.
Clonaid, which calls itself the "first human cloning company," was founded in 1997. Boisselier is a bishop in the Raelian movement.
Claude Vorilhon, who founded the Raelians, told CNN in July 2001 that the long-term goal for human cloning is to live forever. Vorilhon says cloning a baby is only the first step: Eventually the group wants to learn how to clone an adult, then "transfer the brain to the clone."
Boisselier says the immediate purpose for cloning is to help infertile couples. Last November, she told CNN she was "indeed doing human cloned embryos and we have many cell divisions," but she wouldn't confirm any pregnancies.
No data released
To make a clone, scientists first take an egg and remove all of its genetic material. Then the nucleus of a cell -- any cell in the body -- is taken from the individual to be cloned and inserted into the hollowed-out egg.
The cell is then given a jolt of electricity or put in a chemical bath to activate cell division -- essentially tricking the cell into doing what a fertilized egg would normally do. Then the embryo is implanted into a woman's uterus to be carried to term.
It is unknown which exact procedure -- if any -- Clonaid used, because it has not published or released any data about its research.
Boisselier has not revealed the location of her current lab, only to say it is no longer in the United States. She used to have a lab in West Virginia, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration visited the lab and shut it down.
Scientists so far have successfully cloned sheep, cows, goats, mice, pigs and a rare wild ox. But human cloning is controversial, because the experience with animal cloning has shown a lot of potential for things to go wrong.
'One shouldn't do this'
Many animal cloners -- including Ian Wilmut, the Scottish researcher who successfully cloned the first animal, Dolly the sheep, in 1997 -- disapprove of human cloning. Wilmut has said it took 276 failed attempts before Dolly was successfully cloned.
"It is not responsible at this stage to even consider the cloning of humans, " said Rudolf Jaenisch, a biologist at MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biological Research, which clones mice.
Janeisch said that even if a human clone appears healthy, it may not be once it gets older. Cloning a human at this point, he said, without knowing more about why things go wrong, is "essentially using humans as guinea pigs, and one shouldn't do this."
According to Dr. Jon Hill, a veterinarian who successfully cloned cows at Texas A&M University, even clones who appear normal at birth often develop problems afterward.
"Their livers, their lungs, their heart, their blood vessels are often abnormal after birth," Hill said.
Few legal prohibitions The Raelians are not the only group claiming to actively try to clone a human.
Italian doctor Severino Antinori made several announcements in recent months, claiming that a woman was carrying a human clone that would be born in January 2003. And former University of Kentucky professor Panos Zavos has also announced plans to clone a human, but he told CNN earlier this year he had not successfully created an embryo yet.
Scientists and bioethicists have questioned whether any of these groups have the ability to clone a human. Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, has said in the past that "we don't know how" to accomplish human cloning.
Legally, there's very little to stop scientists from cloning. In January, the National Academy of Sciences recommended a ban on human cloning, but only four states -- California, Michigan, Louisiana and Rhode Island -- ban any type of cloning research.
The FDA claims it has jurisdiction over human cloning based on the Public Health Service and Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. It says it would regulate the cloning process like a drug.
Re:For your INfo (Score:2, Informative)
Christianity creates a private reality as well, and anything you said about Raelians applies to them as well (except the free sex thing of course).
My favorite part of your message is the last two sentences... All major religions recruit members, AND put the welfare of the group before individuals. Recruiting children into a religion (before they are even old enough to know better) ranks around the same as enslaving their minds for their whole life. At least there are clinics to help get you off smack. Religious freaks have only Slashdot, and only part of that is nonreligious.
Re:Extremely bad idea (Score:2, Informative)
The answer is that some body cells have an enzyme called telomerase that adds telomeres back to the ends of the chromosomes. This enzyme is found active in cell such as sperm, egg, and cancer. In fact, telomerase allows cancer cells to divide almost infinitely and spread throughout the body.
Geron recognized the power of telomerase and has devoted a great deal of research into how it works. The interesting thing is that to address the problem of "old" DNA in cloning, telomerase could be used to add telomeres and rejuvenate the chromosomes. Also, an anti-telomerase, which is an enzyme that turns the activity of telomerase off, can be used in cancer cells to make them mortal again. If cancer cells can not divide forever they are unable to spread as quickly and devastatingly through the body and have been proven to be more sensitive to chemotherapy.
No seriously, cult? (Score:2, Informative)
Question "What's the difference between a cult. . . and my church, my service club, or, say, Alcoholics Anonymous?"
There are lots of differences, but the major difference is that of ultimate goal. Established religions and altruistic movements are focused outward--they attempt to better the lives of members and often, nonmembers. They make altruistic contributions. Cults serve their own purposes, which are the purposes of the cult leader; their energies are focused inward rather than outward (Singer, 1995).
The following website discusses cults, why people join them and stay in them, and the methods used by the leaders of cults to manipulate their members...
http://www.workingpsychology.com/cult.html