• Question: is it possible to clone a person

    Asked by qwertyasdf to Alison, Artem, Caroline, John, Gunther on 11 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by ross22, qwer, paulsykessupporter2222, hazzahiggs8888.
    • Photo: Caroline Dalton

      Caroline Dalton answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      This is an interesting question. In theory it may be possible. Scientists have been able to clone animals (like Dolly the sheep) so the same procedure could potentially be used to clone a human. Scientists are not very good at it yet though and most of the time when they try to clone an animal, it doesn’t work. 98% of cloning attempts end in failure which means that out of every 100 times scientists try to clone an animal, it only works twice.

      Several doctors also claim to have tried cloning people but no one has ever succeeded. You can read about one of them here:

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3459009.stm

      Cloning humans is actually illegal in the UK and in many other countries and there is also a lot of debate around the ethics of cloning a person. Animals which have been cloned seem to have more health problems and die younger and we don’t really understand the long term implications of cloning on health and survival so many scientists and doctors believe it isn’t right to do it. Some people are also concerned about the effect it would have on the cloned person to know that they were cloned from their mother for example, and what impact this would have on the family and overall well being of the cloned person.

      So, to summarise, in theory it might be possible although it would be difficult, but in practice there is a lot of debate about the morality and ethics of doing it since we really don’t know enough about what the long term effects would be, and it remains illegal in many countries.

    • Photo: Artem Evdokimov

      Artem Evdokimov answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      Please keep in mind that using the current state of technology one may obtain only a very imperfect clone. For one, the clone’s mitochondria would be derived from whoever donated the egg into which the genetic material is injected. And more importantly the clone would not have any of the memories of the original, and would take many years to grow into an adult (assuming that the clone is healthy, which is currently a debated topic).

    • Photo: John Short

      John Short answered on 12 Jun 2012:

      Technology will inevitably progress where you are able to in effect obtain a genetic clone of a person. Depending at what point you clone a person, at the embryonic stage or later in life, the clone will be younger than the original. Like an identical twin, the clone will not have the same personality, as nurture, or the effects of the environment such as parenting, different experiences, whether you smoke, foods you eat, the chemicals you are exposed to in the womb/ test tube or incubator and during life etc, the people you meet, will differ between the original and the clone, and affect you physically and mentally and your personality.

      In addition, epigenetic changes will mean that no clone will have be a perfect genetic clone of the original. Epigenome refers to the natural chemical modifications within a person’s genome or DNA over a life time.

      As said previously, you would not be able to clone the original person’s memories and experiences, so in effect the clone would just share basic initial genetic material but not anything else as the clone develops and grows up before and following birth.

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