Log In | Register
Currently there are several different ways to create an embryo. First, there's the good old fashion way by combining sperm and egg through having sexual intercourse. Next, we have the manual IVF, In Vitro Fertilization, which is quite similar to the first example, except it's done in a lab manually by technicians and usually costs the patient thousands of dollars. After that, there's the clever cloning technique of removing the nucleus of the parent cell and substituting it with the nucleus of the desired cell and then using an electrical charge to shock and fuse the external nucleus with the parent cell for the egg to start manufacturing itself into an embryo. However, in the not too distant future, other methods for creating an embryo may including using hair follicles inside the egg or extracting genetic information from the hair follicles and using that to create the nucleus needed to fuse with the egg. Moreover, sperm or eggs created from an adult stem cell is another technique that will open up the flood gates for fertility treatment. On top of that, there is the possibility of women receiving treatments that allow their own bodies to continuously grow healthy fertile eggs well into old age similar to men; though men's sperm wanes after age 39. Furthermore, women and men may receive new sex organs, made from their own DNA, and grown effortlessly in a lab, which, afterward, is inserted into the patient via surgically by medical specialists. Nonetheless, despite all this wonderful genetic-gadgetry, my question to you, the reader, is: Will it be possible someday for a lab technician to place any random or non-random sample of human DNA, just the double helix form (which includes: Base Pairs of A, T, C, G; and the sugar phosphate) without using the donor's whole entire cell or whole entire nucleus, inside of an egg and have it grow into a human embryo and possibly a fetus?
Can We Make Human Embryos By Using A Person's DNA Sample And An Egg?
Live Poll
Can we make human embryos by using a person's DNA sample and an egg?
- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (8)
Does it become a person with human rights when the nucleus is inserted into the egg, or when the electrical shock fuses the nucleus and the parent egg? And, if the genetic sequence is assembled from multiple parents, would the resulting embryo be considered an instant grandchild or great-grandchild?
Or, if it's assembled from multiple parts and GOD doesn't make it, if it grows up is it a soulless zombie that we can treat like a pet or a stock animal?
Do we reach an answer by rational consensus, or does a religious position decide?
#1 - Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:29 PM EST... you kind of walked to the edge of the roof and jumped off all on your own with that last part.
On a sidenote, if my memory is correct from what I read back when I was studying genetics and more importantly cloning... it's that DNA seems to carry the age of the person with it. In other words, there is a level of decay that occurs to DNA over time and what a particular scientific paper I read was detailing... is that cloned individuals had noticeably shorter lifespans and that they seemed to be related to the age of the individual where the DNA was taken from for the cloning purpose.
I figure that it would not be too difficult to create an embryo in the described manner, but I would wonder what sort of viability there is to the embryo given the previous observations... as well as our lack of understanding regarding all of the biochemical and otherwise unknown actions and interactions we've not recognized with not only the process of fertilization, but the creation of viable gametes.
- 2 votes
RatPoison
... you kind of walked to the edge of the roof and jumped off all on your own with that last part.
Actually, it was meant facetiously...
Just because we can, doesn't mean we should.
- 1 vote
#3 - Fri Jan 28, 2011 6:48 PM ESTWe can do that today though. It's called sex. And for all intents and purposes, cloning is really no different than it. A cloned embryo and a sexually created embryo have the same traits, assuming it was done correctly so as to prevent genetic problems. An IVF and cloned embryo would go through the same process after being created in the lab; implantation followed by birth. The resulting children would be generally the same, again assuming the cloning process worked correctly and didn't introduce fatal or debilitating genetic defects as animal cloning does all too frequently.
The only reasons cloning is any more ethically problematic than IVF or sex is because A: people still incorrectly think of clones as drones or mindless shells similar to clone troopers in Star Wars and B: genetic defects introduced by the process could ruin the lives of anyone created through cloning.
There is also the small long term evolutionary downside of sexual reproduction serving an important purpose in longer lived organisms; it allows for more rapid genetic transfer across the species, helping spread disease immunities and other helpful traits. Although technology for the most part would make such a downside obsolete.
And as it serves no real benefit over IVF or sex, there is really no reason to pursue it.
- 1 vote
You're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
