ORGAN

CLONING –
WHY WE
SHOULD
ENCOURAGE
RESEARCH

BY: TAZIA MCAFFEE

INTRODUCTION, WHAT IS ORGAN
CLONING AND HOW WOULD IT WORK?

 How can a functional organ be cloned? One of the key parts to

answering this question is understanding how stem cells work. “Stem
cells have the capacity to proliferate and to differentiate into relatively
mature cells of various types. In principle, then embryonic stem cells
could be used to replace any organ in the body,” (Cascalho 3).
 What this quote means is that stem cells can be anything, they can
grow into a bone cell, a muscle cell, or a tissue cell. Because of this,
theoretically, when paired with a blastocyst (cells of an embryo) they
could transform into any cell you wanted them to be. Which in this
case, would be organ cells like liver or kidney cells. This would be
done through the process of STEM Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT).
WHY ORGAN CLONING?

 Organ cloning is positive because it doesn't depend on

donors, it eliminates the risk for organ rejection, it may
help treat genetic disease, and it can lead to the
creation of embryonic stem cells.
ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION HAS LONG WAIT LISTS AND
EXTENSIVE REQUIREMENTS

 “More patients are dying while waiting for a suitable

liver or are being permanently withdrawn from the
waiting list. Because of the increased waiting time,
patients become sicker, so that when a graft does
become available, their chances of survival are
lessened and the need for long hospital stay increases,”
(Neuberger 2).
 In other words, patients spend so long on the waiting
list that their condition deteriorates, making the
transplant less successful overall. The gap between
people needing liver transplants and livers are growing
more by the hour. This is if they are even lucky enough
to get on the list. Some aren’t even eligible for a
transplant.
ORGAN CLONING DOESN’T
DEPEND ON DONORS, SO
ORGANS WOULD BE MORE
AVAILABLE.

 Every year more than 8,000 patients die

waiting on a transplant list, that is on
average 22 people per day (Donate 1).
This is a devastating reality that organ
cloning can help to reduce. In organ
transplantation, a donor organ must be
present to give to the patients.
 Because cloned organs would be
artificially produced, a donor organ would
not be needed. Which greatly increases the
available organs. This would also help to
reduce the long wait times of the patient,
which results in a higher chance of
survival overall.
ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION
HAS A RISK FOR REJECTION
 “The immune system attacks any graft that is not
genetically identical to the patient. Even a well-matched
transplant requires lifelong treatment with
immunosuppressive drugs, which have serious side effects,
including increased susceptibility to infection and  cancer,”
(Cookson 1).
 Because no person is the exact same, no match can be
perfect. Therefore, after transplantation the body doesn’t
recognize the tissue as its own, so it tries to attack it. This is
why there is risk of rejection with every transplant. With
the risk, patient’s have to take immunosuppressive drugs,
which weaken the immune system, so that the body can’t
attack the new organ. However, this also weakens the
immune system from being able to fight off any infection
or disease. Transplantation requires the patient to be on
life-altering drugs the rest of their life.
ORGAN CLONING WOULD ELIMINATE THAT RISK

 With cloning, they could use somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). SCNT is using a donated egg (oocyte) with a
removed nucleus and inserting the patient's nucleus. This could potentially make it genetically the same as the
tissue, resulting in the tissue recognizing it as its own.
 This would then prevent rejection of the functional organ that grew from the oocyte. 
IT MAY HELP TREAT GENETIC
DISEASES

 Somatic (stem) cells carry the same DNA as the patient, so genetic
abnormalities would also be transferred. This could lead scientists
to find a way to alter the genetic sequences. Resulting in correcting
the issues that caused the patient to have an organ replacement.
Whether that be a disease or disorder. A whole new field of
medical treatments to cure these things is possible from the
research being done on SCNT.
IT OFFERS NEW TREATMENT OPTIONS

 Many long-term diseases could be controlled before they became devasting. For example, diabetes could be
controlled by altering the genes of the patient and replacing the pancreas. The pancreas is responsible for
producing insulin, so replacing that by organ cloning could eliminate diabetes. Conditions such as Alzheimer’s
disease, could be treated also be treated with the help of organ cloning. On top of these two diseases, therapeutic
organ cloning could potentially treat hundreds of other diseases. If healthcare professionals are able to figure out
how to clone an organ, it opens a new realm of possibilities for treatment options.
IT CAN LEAD TO THE
CREATION OF NEW
EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS

 SCNT allows scientists to create new stem

cells, which are then removed from the
organism without harming the body. The
removed stem cells have the possibility to turn
into any type of specialized cell.
 This could be a muscle, tissue, skin cell, etc.
Because of this they could be used to treat
many kinds of diseases in the body organs. Not
just transplantation, but many other surgical
procedures involving diseased organs.
IS ORGAN CLONING ETHICAL?

 This is the question that everyone asks. Is it ethical? No one seems to

have the answer to this question, because everyone has their own answer
and opinions about it. Many people believe that human cloning is
unethical and that it could be taken too far.
 However, the majority of people are fine with organ cloning, as long as it
isn’t an entire human being cloning.
 With SCNT just the organ would be cloned from an embryo, which could
be easily removed from an organism. This would result in no harm to the
organism and allow for just a single organ to be cloned.
CONCLUSION

  This process is far from perfect, but with more

research scientists can get closer to understanding this
process and eventually cloning organs. Which will
lead to saving lives, and that is the ultimate goal of
healthcare. Aeger Primo is the motto healthcare
professionals live by, and it means The Patient First. 
WORKS CITED

 Cascalho, M, and J L Platt. “The future of organ replacement: needs, potential applications, and obstacles to application.”
Transplantation proceedings vol. 38,2 (2006): 362-4. doi:10.1016/j.transproceed.2005.12.055
 Cookson, Clive. “The Cloning Connection.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 27 June 2005,
www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-cloning-connection/.
 Donate Life America. “Donation and Transplantation Statistics.” Donate Life America, 16 Jan. 2019,
www.donatelife.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2019-NDLM-Donation-and-Transplantation-Statistics-FINAL-
Jan2019.pdf. 
 Neuberger, James, and Oliver James. “Guidelines for Selection of Patients for Liver Transplantation in the Era of Donor-
Organ Shortage.” Lancet, vol. 354, no. 9190, Nov. 1999, pp. 1636–1639. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/S0140-
6736(99)90002-8.