Aqa Gcse Biology- Cloning 4q4bi

Cloning crop plants in tissue culture You can clone crop plants by tissue culture. This involves a small amount of tissue or a number of cells being taken from the plant you want to clone. The plant material is then transferred to plates containing the sterile, nutrient agar. Plant hormones are added to stimulate cell division and this causes them to grow rapidly into small masses of tissue. More growth hormones are added to stimulate the growth of roots and stems. The platelets are finally transferred into potting trays where they develop into plants that are identical to the cloned plant. Tissue culture is a form of asexual reproduction because it only involves one parent and the offspring are exactly the same as them. Social Advantages –  You can grow a larger amount of crops in a shorter period of time  The technique provides the opportunity to control growth conditions and to synchronise the processes of growth and development, making it possible to obtain plants with the optimal characteristics.  Plants can be produced even if the weather or climate isn’t suitable  Crops can be developed to be resistant to pests Social Disadvantages –  All the plants that are made will have the same chances of infections because they all have the same vulnerability.  The diversity of plants will decrease; since they are all a product of asexual reproduction and so are clones  The process needs a lot of time and observation spent on it Economic Advantages –  More commerce for the country as people want to buy the improved crops  Higher incomes for the farmers as the cloned crops are genetically stronger and so they can charge a higher price for them  Less economic loss from failed crops because they are all identical to the cloned crop  More tax revenue for the country Economic Disadvantages  There would be a cost for cloning the plants and in developing new procedures to do this Ethical issues –  Some people argue that messing around with nature will have severe consequences. Selecting future desirable traits in crops could affect the ecosystem in unforeseen ways. Such as pest-resistant crops will deprive the pests of the food and so they will die out and affect the food chain beyond them.  Plants could be cloned that mutations or new toxins into the environment or introduce something that is dangerous into our food supply

Cloning and transplanting cattle embryos Embryo cloning involves giving top-quality cow fertility hormones so that it produces a lot of eggs. The eggs are then fertilized using sperm from a very good bull. Often this is done inside the cow and the embryos’ produced are gently washed out of her womb. Sometimes the eggs are collected and you add sperm in a laboratory to produce embryos. At this stage of development the cells of the embryos are not specialized. They can become specialized by dividing each embryo into several individual cells, which grow into an identical embryo in a lab. You then transfer the embryos into their host mothers, who have been given hormones to get them ready for pregnancy. Identical clone calves are born which are not biologically related to their mothers.

Social Advantages –  Cows can produce far more claves using embryo cloning, meaning farmers have excellent quality cows on their farm  Using embryo cloning means we can transport high-quality embryos all around the world, which is helpful in places where cattle is of a low standard and there are shortages of good meat and milk  Identical copies of embryos that have been genetically modified can produce medically useful compounds Social Disadvantages –  The cloned calves are at risk from pathogenic diseases, which will affect all of the them because they are genetically identical  If one clone has a defective gene they all have it Economic Advantages –  You can produce far more cows, which can make beef and milk that can be sold at a cheaper price, so poorer people can get good quality products  Farmers can make more money; since the cows are of a much higher quality they can sell them at a Economic Disadvantages –  The beef from cloned cows can become toxic if the cow is not cloned properly, causing a loss of income to the farmers Ethical issues –  Cloning of cattle can go wrong and the cloned calves can be born with deformities and genetic disorders, which some believe is cruel to the animal itself  This method of cloning could lead to human cloning, which some people believe is unacceptable because it would involve killing human embryos

Cloning Human body parts for transplant This process would involve taking a donor egg, and removing its nucleus. This would be replaced by a cell nucleus from the patient. The result is stimulated to divide, and stem cells harvested from the resulting blastocyst. Stem cells are capable of forming any kind of tissue including organs. These would be grown on to form the required organ, and then transplanted. Social Advantages –       

Cloning human body parts has the potential to save millions and millions of people’s lives Could dramatically improve life expectancy of people as previously incurable conditions can now be cured There would be presumably be no danger of rejection of the transplant because the organ's DNA would match the patient's DNA exactly. For transplants involving kidney (or theoretically any other organ that is duplicated in the body), another individual would not have to experience pain, inconvenience, and potentially shortened life span in order to donate the organ The patient would not have to wait until an unrelated donor dies to obtain a transplant. A need organ could be grown for them as needed The patient would not have to make-do with a replacement organ that is old and may have reduced functionality; a brand-new organ would be grown specifically for them. The potential exists to cure, or at least treat, certain diseases and disorders that cannot be effectively handled today.

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Stem cells have sometimes mutated, and thus been rejected by the recipient's body. In other cases, at least with experiments on animals, they have produced tumors Pro-life ers generally believe that a human person comes into existence at conception. Some believe that somatic cell nuclear transfer is sufficiently similar to normal conception with an egg and spermatozoa that a human person also comes into existence during therapeutic cloning. The process of extracting stem cells involves killing the embryo

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It would cost a lot less in hospital fees, since we could replace vital organs such as the heart, liver and lungs, instead of keeping people hospitalized for long periods of time. It would also benefit the hospitals, as they are not subsidizing the medicine

Economic Disadvantages – .  Creating body parts by cloning is expensive, so in certain countries where healthcare is not nationally accessible, it will only be available to people who can afford it Ethical issues – 

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. The ethical issues facing therapeutic cloning are largely related to the use of embryonic stem cells. Many people regard these cells as the building blocks for a human life and consider attempts to harvest material from them as murder. The ethics of stem cell use (and cloning) were subject to much public debate during the presidency of George WW Bush . A concern is that certain people will eventually be the ones sought after for their cells. This messes

with natural selection, and could lead to a new race of people based on evolutionary prejudice

Cloning a human completely A human could be cloned by Somatic cell nuclear transfer, which begins when doctors take the egg from a female donor and remove its nucleus, creating an enucleated egg. A cell, which contains DNA, is taken from the person who is being cloned. Then the enucleated egg is fused together with the cloning subject's cell using electricity. This creates an embryo, which is implanted into a surrogate mother through in vitro fertilization. If the procedure is successful, then the surrogate mother will give birth to a baby that's a clone of the cloning subject at the end of a normal gestation period. The success rate for this type of procedure is small, working in only one or two out of every 100 embryos Social Advantages –   

Families who lost their children such as in accidents could have an exact copy of their child Couples who could not have children could get one, instead of having to look at other options such as adoptions Clones could be used to test new medication and medical practices, which could improve the quality of healthcare around the world

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A person’s sense of individuality and uniqueness come under threat Human fetuses are killed in the process of cloning a human completely The process of cloning humans is likely to create physical abnormalities in the cloned foetus. If cloned from adult cells, the rapid ageing of these cells can cause these abnormalities and force scientists to destroy the faulty clones. Clones are likely not to be accepted into society quickly or easily, so there could be battles over the rights of cloned

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Clones could have particular physical traits that allow them to do manual labor such as working in a mine. These clones could be paid less than the uncloned humans

Economic Disadvantages – 

Cloning a human would be very expensive because of the high level of technology and precision needed

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People could start cloning children with particular genetic attributes, which could lead to social inequalities It would lead to over population since most people who died are cloned and people are still giving birth this would lead to over congestion that can lead to food shortage and other effect that could lead to the degradation of the human race Clones would also suffer from “old age”, meaning symptoms normally associated with the elderly like hip and t problems and even senility, much earlier in their lives. Some scientists estimate a human clone would have to have their hips replaced in their mid teens.