Key questions about modern medical science

What exactly is cloning and do I need to worry about it?

Cloning is 'making a copy of a plant or animal by taking a cell from it and developing it artificially' There is nothing new about this — plants were cloned in Ancient Greece over 2,000 years ago, and the first cloned frog appeared in 1968. But interest in cloning grew in 1997 when Dr Ian Wilmut and his colleagues from Edinburgh University announced the birth of the world's first cloned sheep, Dolly (some people pointed out that since all sheep look identical anyway, how could anyone tell?). However, many people were worried: what if the same techniques were used for some rich, elderly person to reinvent himself; or if an evil dictator produced hundreds of copies of himself in order to take over the world; or grieving relatives used cloning to bring their loved ones back to life?

The truth is that there is no chance that any copy of a human being would be identical either physically or mentally, any more than children are identical to their parents. The possible benefits of cloning, however, are numerous, for artificially producing human tissues and organs for transplant, and for preserving endangered animal species to name but two. Biologists have already genetically engineered headless frogs so it may in future be possible to clone headless humans whose organs could be used for transplants. But would we want to?

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