Clones hit home

Sheep cloning doctor to speak about procedure's technology

Ever since a Scottish scientist named Ian Wilmut dropped a bombshell on the world and announced the cloning of an adult sheep a year ago, the shock waves have reverberated through the headlines daily.

Scientists hailed the cloning as a great advance in research and medicine. Both ethicists and scientists asked if cloning -- particularly of a human -- is ethically justifiable.

Today, the clone wars come to the University. At 8 p.m. today, Wilmut will visit Eisenhower Auditorium to discuss cloning technology as part of the University's Distinguished Speakers Series.

Wilmut's discussion will include a video of the breakthrough experiment that captured the public's imagination. Taking a cell from the mammary gland of an adult sheep, he put the cell in a resting state, fused it with an egg and let it come to life inside a surrogate mother.

While that technique has opened several scientific doors, it has also created the ethically troubling possibility of cloning humans in the future. Should we be frightened or excited by this new technology?

The University's scientific community is divided on an answer.

"We tend to get afraid because of all the science fiction that's out there," said Guy Barbato, associate professor of poultry science. "But I'm not sure if any of it is valid."

The idea of human cloning feeds off our fear and interest in the unknown, Barbato said. But the possibility is further in the future than scientists, such as Seed, are claiming, Barbato added.

The current techniques are too inefficient to make cloning humans practical, said Dick Frisque, professor of molecular virology.

"You're going to go through a lot of people before you might get a success," he said. Cloning Dolly the sheep, for example, took 277 tries.

While most people will be stopped by government regulations banning or regulating human cloning, some scientists, if paid enough, will try to clone a human, Frisque said.

"You can have deterrents, but you can't stop people from breaking the law," he said.

Carl Mitcham, professor of philosophy and of science, technology and society, said the community is not taking the debate seriously enough.

"The enthusiasm that's been generated by cloning is like the enthusiasm that's generated by the latest Madonna record," he said.

Mitcham said the public response to cloning has shifted with frightening speed from rejection to qualified enthusiasm.

"I'm very uneasy about the way we give in to any new technology," he said. "I'm afraid of how we sort of run through every door we open."

The scientific and medical possibilities cloning creates should not be overshadowed by the fear of cloning humans, said Clair Engle, associate professor of animal science.

"Cloning (humans) just for the sake of cloning is not going to happen," Engle said. "We're going to have to find some additional justifications for it before that happens."

Engle said cloning can be used as a research tool to study genetic diseases, while Barbato said the technology can help us better understand embryonic development and reproduction.

Frisque said cloned animals could be useful as "factories" for producing materials to benefit humans, such as proteins essential for blood clotting to give to hemophiliacs.

For now, Barbato said, such possibilities for learning are more important than the fear of human cloning. Even with governmental regulation and legislation, he said, human cloning is possible.

"There are a lot of people out there with a lot of money," he said. "(Some of them) have enough hubris to think the world needs another one of them."