Biochemistry and Technology Essay

1. For the lesson, I chose the topic of animal cloning for agricultural needs. 2. The sources I used are http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/NewsEvents/FDAVeterinarianNewsletter/ucm106070.htm http://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/how/areas-of-research/animal-cloning/ 3. Cloning has always been something of science fiction, the ability to make an exact copy of an organism. Recently though, this sci-fi idea is more of reality than ever. Many have heard of Dolly the sheep, a perfect clone, but cloning has been done many times throughout the world. Rabbits, horses, mice and others have been clone before. Since cloning only takes one parent cell, the offspring is an exact genetic replica of the first. Now, cloning for agriculture was one of the first marketing thoughts on the subject. If a farmer were to have just one healthy pig that could end up being 100 healthy pigs, it would get rid of the problem of genetic problems with farm animals. A 100% success rate would help the farming business greatly. 4. There are many positive aspects of cloning technology for the use of livestock trading. This technology would benefit all in the livestock circle. Imagine that every steak you came from the â€Å"near-perfect† cow. Each cow would have the genes of one â€Å"perfect† cow. This would give the consumer and producer less work of having to find the best of what they want. 5. Many fear that cloning could be used for the wrong purposes, the main being human testing. People fear that the testing of animals is just the first step to people. Another problem that people fear is that animals will start to less seem like animals and just soulless things. 6. So Dolly was not the first clone, and she looked like any other sheep, so why did she cause so much excitement and concern, since she was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, rather than an embryo. This was a major scientific achievement, but also raised ethical concerns.