Biotechnology: The Concept Of Cloning

What is Biotechnology?

Biotechnology from the dictionary is the exploitation of biological processes for industrial and other purposes, especially the genetic manipulation of microorganisms to produce antibiotics, hormones, etc.

Simply, biotechnology is technology based on biology. Biotechnology harnesses cellular and biomolecular processes to develop technologies and products that help improve our lives and the health of our planet. We have used the biological processes of microorganisms for more than 6,000 years to make useful food products, such as bread and cheese, and to preserve dairy products.

Modern biotechnology provides breakthrough products and technologies to combat debilitating and rare diseases, reduce our environmental footprint, feed the hungry, use less and clear energy, and have safer, cleaner and more efficient industrial manufacturing processes.

Currently, there are more than 250 biotechnology health care products and vaccines available to patients, many for previously untreatable diseases. More than 13.3 million farmers around the world use agricultural biotechnology to increase yields, prevent damage form insects and pests and reduce farming’s impact on the environment. Many biorefineries are built across the world to test and refine technologies to produce biofuels and chemicals from renewable biomass, which can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

How is Biotechnology done?

Biotechnology is done through genetic engineering and works through the genetic material of a cell. If we inspected a cell under a powerful magnifying lens, we would see long, string-like structures called chromosomes. These chromosomes, made out of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), are sorted out into segments called genes. Genes control the creation of specific proteins, and proteins, thus, decide the attributes of an organism. Sometimes, a quality may oversee one specific attribute, for example, a living being’s protection from sickness, while in different cases, attributes might be dictated by numerous qualities. It was the comprehension of DNA that made it ready for genetic designing. The learning picked up has enabled specialists to exchange qualities between the cells of various life forms.

Why do Biotechnology?

Doing biotechnology has some great impacts because of some recent advances in biotechnology are helping us prepare for and meet society’s most pressing challenges. Three great impacts biotechnology has had on the world are healing, fuel and food.

The healing aspect of biotechnology is that it is helping to heal the world by harnessing nature’s own toolbox and using our own genetic makeup to heal and guidelines of research. Biotechnology is reducing rates of infectious disease, saving millions of children’s lives, changing the odds of serious, life-threatening conditions affecting millions around the world and creating more precise tools for disease detection.

Cloning

What is Cloning?

Cloning in the biochemistry meaning is to replicate (a fragment of DNA placed in an organism) so that it is sufficient to analyse or use in protein production. Clones are organisms that are the exact same as each other, genetic copies of one another. Every single bit of their DNA is the same of each other. Clones can normally occur naturally, like twins for example. Clones can also be made in a lab.

What is the issue?

Some ethical issues about cloning are

• The kind of life a cloned individual will lead.
• Would they live like a unique individual or would they have to live like a genetic prisoner?
• Should parents choose the traits of their future child’s traits as you could with cloning?
• These and other such issues present an ethical and moral dilemma for scientists and experts alike who see cloning as a potential danger to human identity.

Who does it affect?

Cloning affects all of the life on earth from humans and animals to even plants.

Advantages Disadvantages

• Reproductive cloning
• Organ replacement
• Genetic research
• Obtaining desired traits in an organism
• Recovery from traumatic injury • Reproductive cloning
• Increased malpractice
• Lack of diversity
• Faster ageing
• Security

How is the situation being managed?

The situation about cloning is under good management because at the moment there has been no human trials anyway they are more than confident to go under human trials. They have undergone experiments on animals. They experimented on a sheep but it took over 250 tries to get it right. So, they are not fancied to do it on humans because of the health problems it could give to the child.

What is the opinion of the church?

The church says while we may have the technology “to do” something, we do not necessarily have the moral mandate “to do” that something. The catholic way states that it is a privilege to have a child but for one to be genetically modified, created and cloned in a lab is not respecting the human life that the catholic church portrays.

What is your opinion?

My opinion about cloning is neither for or against it. I believe that cloning can be good for things like research but it can also be a bad thing because of stuff like someone being cloned and their clone not living a normal life like everyone else.

What makes a technique unacceptable?

Making such a thing like cloning an acceptable technique is hard because on the off chance that researchers ever make entire individuals through conceptive cloning at that point there are far more noteworthy moral issues to manage. Individuals restricted to regenerative cloning think it isn’t right to ‘play God’ and to falsely make individuals. They likewise question whether a cloned individual would be extraordinary or sub-par compared to a normally considered individual.