Organ Cloning

By Cara Kohlbrenner and Jillian Koesterer

Basic Principles of Genetics

• Recessive and dominant alleles control traits because if your alleles are either both recessive or both dominant than you are homozygous. If your alleles are dominant and recessive then your trait would be dominant because the dominant allele would mask the recessive allele.

•  Traits are controled by co-dominant alleles because they control your genes and if you are co-dominant then you are neither dominant nor recessisive so your trait will be mixed.

•  The alleles of two parents combine to give its offspring its traits because one allele from each parent is given to the offspring randomly to give it its trait.

Human Genome Project

• The Human Genome Project was started in 1990. It continued for 13 years.

• Scientists hoped to use this information for therapeutic cloning that can be used to generate tissues and organs for people who need a new tissue or organ. 

• One of the ethical issues is the fairness in the use of genetic information, a legal issue is privacy and confidentiality and a social issue is Psychological impact and stigmatization. GINA was made to prevent discrimination based on a persons genetic information.

• It was affected by the human genome project because

Genetic Disorder•Compare genetic disorders: Chromosome Abnormalities is when  chromosomes are missing or duplicated. This is similar to single gene disorder because it is when there is a mutation that causes a single gene to be altered or missing. This is different from Multifactorial disorder because it is a mutation that occurs in multiple genes unlike single gene disorder which usually occurs in single genes. Multifactorial disorder usually is due to environmental causes.•Genetic counseling provides help and information to couples who would like to have children but may have genes that can produce a serious disease or defect in their future offspring.   The genetic counseling can provide them with information about what the likelihood would be of having a child that has the disease or defect, as well as what that would mean to the child. •Karyotypes are used in genetic counseling to a line chromosomes.http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/genetics/

sect2f.htm

Argument 1

Cloning organs is a good thing because it improves the quality of life and it also in some cases, save lives. For example kidney transplant is a treatment for the end of renal disease, but over time there has been a shortage of organs. There are long waiting list for organ transplants and many people die while waiting. If we had Organ cloning then there would be many organs so people could get their transplants faster and earlier so there would be less people dying because they need an organ transplant. Organ engineering and organ cloning are new techniques that can be used for transplants in the future. This is why organ cloning is a good way to save lives and the federal government should fund it.

Argument 2

 If a patient needed an organ transplant, then

they would have to take harmful anti-rejection drugs for the rest of that person’s life which has side effects such as, weak bones and memory loss and could really harm the person. If the patient had gotten their organ cloned then that organ would be custom made for that specific person. Their tissue would be histocompatible therefore the patients body would not reject the organ because it would be identical to their own organ.

This is why organ cloning is a much better solution to organ transplants than taking anti-rejection drugs.

Argument 3

 Another reason that organ cloning is a good idea is

that we wouldn’t have to take organs from other people. When someone donates a lot of major organs and body parts it affects that person because they get weaker and they might even be in danger of dying because some their body parts help them stay alive. If we used organ cloning then people wouldn’t need to donate their body parts and it would be much safer because the body wouldn’t reject their organ as they would if it was someone else's organ. Organ cloning would be very helpful and this is why the federal government should fund it.

Argument 4

  Organ cloning would also be very useful because the cells removed are pluripotent so they treat diseases in any body organ or tissue by replacing damaged and dysfunctional cells. This would help because it would treat the organ or tissue and get rid of all the cells that are damaged or don’t work right. This would cause less problems and deaths because there would not be any damaged and dysfunctional cells.

Conclusion

 Organ Cloning should be funded by the

federal government because it saves lives or can improve the quality of life, the patient would not have to take anti-rejection drugs, there would be less deaths and it is pluripotent. It would also help with the huge shortage of organs and tissue in the U.S.

•http://www.publicagenda.org/files/charts/bp_medresearch_cloning_organs_transplants.png

http://www.cincinnatitransplant.org/images/graph_organshortage.gif

The graph above shows the ratio between the patients on the waiting list (light blue) and the number of transplants (dark blue).

• http://home.caregroup.org/BIDMCtoday/2004April/graph04.jpg

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As shown in the graph above by 2003 there were over 83,700 people on the waiting list for organ transplants in the U.S.

Works Cited

• http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2011012100&type=hitlist&num=0

• http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/pageDocuments/1FSNATIMBZ.pdf

• http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/elsi.shtml

•  http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/genetics/sect2f.htm• http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/Vi

ewpointsDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Viewpoints&prodId=OVIC&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010073241&userGroupName=jchs_ca&jsid=cdabe85c977ab0b29c646b0bfcce1b1e

• http://www.explorestemcells.co.uk/TherapeuticCloning.html

• http://www.publicagenda.org/files/charts/bp_medresearch_cloning_organs_transplants.png