A Dialogue Paper on Human CloningThis dialogue is between two university students. Steve is a little uneasy about cloning, while Sally presents many valid arguments in its favor. Steve presents many moral questions which Sally answers. Steve: Hi, Sally. Did you know that the Scottish embryologist Ian Wilmut cloned a sheep from adult cells and now there are many moral, economic and political questions that need to be answered. Sally: Interestingly, I was just reading about this topic in a magazine article. I was amazed at the simplicity of the cloning process used by Dr. Wilmut and his colleagues. The process of cloning a sheep begins by taking cells from the udder of an adult sheep and placing them in a culture with few nutrients. The goal is to starve the cells so that they stop dividing. This turns off the active genes. As they starve these cells, they take an unfertilized egg from another sheep and remove the nucleus from this unfertilized egg. Then, they place the unfertilized egg next to one of the original starved cells. Steve: How do the two cells come together? Does it happen spontaneously? Sally: No, it doesn't happen spontaneously. An electrical impulse fuses the two cells together. A second electrical impulse causes the cell to divide. After six days, Dr. Wilmut placed this embryo into a different sheep, and after a normal gestation period, the new sheep called Dolly was born. It's named after Dolly Parton.Steve: But cloning is nothing new. In 1952, Pennsylvania researchers cloned a live frog. What makes Dr. Wilmut's achievement so special? Sally: Yes, it's true that a frog was cloned in 1952, but those scientists used an embryonic cell. Dr. Wilmut used an adult cell. Steve: What is the difference between using an embryonic cell and an adult cell? Sally: Embryonic cells are "undifferentiated." Undifferentiated cells have not undergone changes that turn some cells into skin cells, muscle cells or brain cells, for example. Undifferentiated cells can become any cell in the body because they can activate any gene on any chromosome, but as cells develop, the DNA of some cells folds in particular ways making large portions of DNA inaccessible. This ensures that the wrong genes are not activated at the wrong time or in the wrong place.