"cloning a human is easier than cloning a cow"

This article, "Someone, Somewhere is Trying to Clone a Human Now" is on Red Nova News, and requires free subscription, but it's worth reading.

The common myth is that there is some difference between so called "therapeutic" cloning and "reproductive cloning." This article continues that misdirection, as well as mentioning that embryonic stem cells can produce " virtually any type of specialised cell in the human body." Well, of course they can: that's how all of us began - as an embryo full of our stem cells.

But, the author details the history of cloning since the first tadpole was cloned in the '50's and describes the differences in cloning different species, as well as the special difficulties in some species. I was surprised at how many species have been cloned already.

But most importantly, he gives away several points that the embryonic stem cell lobby would rather we did not know. Among them are:

1.

"Bring me human eggs, the necessary social consensus and legal permission and I can get you your replica within a year," says cloning expert Park Se-pill of Korea's Maria Biotech. "In contrast to widespread public belief, cloning a human is much easier than cloning a cow or pig."

2.

[E]xtracting the stem cells sees the destruction of the embryo in question

3.

Cloning cows is commonplace already. Eggs are easy to gather from slaughterhouses and a cow's anatomy also makes embryo transfer relatively easy. Most animals, including cats, require surgery to transfer cloned embryos into the reproductive tract.

4.

Hematech, a US biotech company owned by Japanese brewer Kirin, is working on biomedical applications. The company's main project is a cow that has been genetically modified to produce human antibodies; the animal has been valued at $100m. The Department of Defence has given the company a grant to produce antibodies with "biodefence applications" - such as immunising against anthrax.

And,

5.

In practice most meat and milk would not come from clones themselves, which would be used to improve the agricultural gene pool, but from their progeny; clones are for breeding, not for eating.

This last underlines the benefit of cloning that scientists and venture capitalists are hoping for- it allows genetic manipulation that can be passed to offspring.

Mice are used for research on diseases because entire strains of mice can be produced with the same genetic defect or sets of defects. With the advent of cloning, genetic manipulation will produce more mice for research. The practical and immediate (and most likely to be realized) hope of embryonic stem cell and cloning advocates is not the popular idea of organs for transplant. Companies such as Genentech, ACT, and others are planning on vats of human cloned embryos will fill "greenhouses" where researchers will be able to test drugs and toxins.


As Park se-Pill says above,(and as all the successes in animal cloning shows) the technique to produce embryos for research is the same - and produces the same sort of embryo - that could result in a born infant.