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Summary of the text "A spark of science, a storm of controversy"

The text, I dealt with, is the article with the title "A spark of science, a storm of controversy" which is provided by the Princeton university. It is divided into six parts: An introduction, background information about cloning the sheep Dolly and opinions on the issue by four experts.

The introduction

In the introductory part the reader is briefly informed about the cloning of the sheep Dolly. This event from the year 1996 has attracted the attention of the media for a long period of time. Controversial opinions of experts all over the world have appeared. They all comment on the fact that it is now possible for scientists to create exact genetic copies of large mam-mals. In contrast to the alarming scenarios painted by representatives of the national media, the view of most Princeton experts is more optimistic. All in all, it can be characterised as "wait and see".

How was Dolly cloned? (background information)

Ian Wilmut, a scientist at a biotechnology company of Edinburgh called PPL Therapeutics, has managed to clone - that is to make an identical genetic copy - a large mammal. The pro-cedure is now described in detail. Wilmut removes the nucleus of a sheep's egg cell and in-serts a mammary cell from a six-year-old sheep. Because of a jolt of electricity the combined cells start dividing. He then implants the now developing embryo into another ewe. And af-ter a few months, Dolly was born. Although this attempt has worked, the technique is still full of risks. Out of 29 eggs implanted into 13 ewes only one has become a living sheep.

An entire basketball team of Micheal Jordans?

In the now following four parts experts of different universities present their opinion con-cerning the issue.

Kelly Smith at CNJ (college of New Jersey)

Kelly Smith points out that there are often misunderstandings among the people with regard to cloning. Many of them don't understand that cloning simply means a creation of twins. An identical twins are not necessarily identical in the sense of personality. In Smith's opinion lots of reasons can be found to prove that there is a difference between you and your clone. First of all, the clone will grow up under different environmental con-ditions. The clone would also grow up in a world which is different from the one the donor lived in. So Smith comes to the conclusion that the similarities would be less obvious than between traditional twins.

Jennifer Lobo at Peregrine

Jennifer Lobo is CEO of Peregrine Pharmacenticals. She holds the view that scientists don't take into account the importance of judging their research by ethical or moral aspects. It is only essential for them to solve a part of a puzzle (that is achieving a certain aim) . Lobo ex-plains that the ethical questions raised by cloning are comparable to those questions raised by identifying new genes, so that some kind of diseases can be discovered very early. That is why , in Lobo's eyes, these questions don't constitute reasons to stop research on the sub-ject. Furthermore she states that cloning is already used in all kinds of research e.g. in the production of drug products.

Paul Schmitt at DNX / Chrysalis

Paul Schmitt, CED of Chrysalis; mentions that the numerous possibilities represented by cloning don't automatically outweigh the risk of unseen consequences. In the text by Schmitt, also appears CEO of Medarex, Don Drakeman, who is a supporter of a temporary moratorium on cloning research until people have had enough time to think about the issue. In his opinion it is very important to study the extent of cloning used in healthcare very thoroughly and additionally it is necessary that the biotech industry exercise extreme cau-tion in this field. Another expert, whose opinion is published in this part, is Greg Merrit, a member of the Green Party of New Jersey. He is of the opinion that one should not clone any animals, let alone humans. As a reason for his point of view he refers to the risk of high disease rates among cloned animals.

Max Stackhouse, UCC

A minister of the United Church of Christ, Max Stackhouse, believes there is a potential dan-ger that people will play God when they perform human cloning. He raises the question if humans should have the totality of their own destiny. And he is certain about the necessity of limits no matter whether for religious, theological, or moral reasons. But Stackhouse admits that the danger is not imminent. Today, nobody can say for sure that humans could be cloned. Furthermore he sees problems in connection with Dolly the sheep. First of all, her DNA has come from an adult sheep and because of the age-related degradation of certain chromosomes there is a difference between her chronological age and her genetic age.