"Report on Science"
Cloning Reb Blood Cells in Plants
British Broablipasting Corporation [ BBC, London, UK ]
7 March 1997
A report was reviewed on the research in Scotland regarding the cloning of sheep. Then the discussion moved to France. There, researchers have succeeded in cloning human DNA into tobacco plants, and they caused the plants to produce human red blood cells. There were complications, though the experiment was a success, so they are going to try using sugar beets. Next, turnips??
Their objective is to make red blood for blood transfusions which would be free of biogens such as the AIDS virus, so that the blood banks could be supplied with cheap and safe blood.
Is this a noble motive? Yes, and I can't complain about it. But; what is next? Do these men have the ethics of the Lord Jesus Christ? Answer-- NO! So, after making growth hormones and other useful things, they will become obsessed with the need to improve humans in general by genetic and clone engineering. It is in their blood-- the blood of men who are self-deceived.
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
The potential for evil is without measure. Is your pastor taking a stand on this. We were late on divorce and remarriage. We were slow to stand against abortion. We thought nobody would do such evil things. Then, we totally ignored biogenetic engineering in 1972 when Frances Schaeffer exposed it. Now, will the true Body of Christ leave this one to the Pope and Jerry Falwell?
Here is an article of sililar interest.
13 March 1997, London Daily Telegraph
Australians clone a herd of 500 cattle embryos
By Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent
THE day of mass-produced clones has come a step closer after Australian researchers created almost 500 genetically identical cattle embryos.
The embryos were created from egg cells taken from cow ovaries, but the Australian team now needs to prove it can advance the embryos through successful pregnancies to birth.
If the Australian achievement can be combined with the technology used to create Dolly, the six-month-old lamb cloned from the cell of an adult sheep in Scotland, it will have far-reaching implications. Theoretically it might be possible to make literally hundreds of copies of an adult animal.
The team that produced Dolly at the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh, obtained only one lamb from 277 attempts using sheep udder cells. "I think we could improve on that dramatically," said Alan Trounson, who created the 500 embryos at Monash University in Clayton, Victoria.
Bernie Harford, a collaborator at Genetics Australia, a farmers' co-operative which develops new technologies for agriculture, said: "We are developing a production process for genetically identical embryos."
At a Commons science and technology select committee last week the Roslin Institute's director, Prof Grahame Bulfield, and chief researcher Dr Ian Wilmut predicted a time when most farm animals were clones. They expected their cloning technique to be extended to cattle and pigs within five to 10 years. Clones could improve the quality of livestock and also be used to protect biodiversity, with clone cells frozen and stored to ensure breeds do not die out.
The Australian scientists produced embryos and for four of five days allowed them to divide into a ball of cells called a blastocyst. They then separated up to 30 cells from the blastocyst and, like the Roslin researchers, used electric current to fuse the cells' nuclei with the cell body material of an unfertilised egg - obtained from cow ovaries in abattoirs - that had its own DNA removed.
This resulted in genetically identical embryos which could grow and multiply in the laboratory, and be separated again and again. Until now no one has reported producing more than 100 embryos from a single blastocyst, but the Australians claim their record is 470.
According to a report in New Scientist today, six calves have been born using the technology, although these were not from the record-setting batch. The technique described by the Australians should allow eggs from a prize-winning cow to be fertilised with sperm from an elite bull, and then be used to produce hundreds of genetically identical offspring.
However, Keith Campbell, a member of the Roslin team, said the Australians had yet to show that their mass-produced embryos would lead on to healthy pregnancies and calves. He told New Scientist that cloned embryos often failed to develop.
To prove that there will be terror over cloning, IT IS ALREADY HERE!!!! Thus:
14 March 1997, London Daily Telegraph
Owner wants to clone Cigar after failures at stud
By Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent
CIGAR, the American thoroughbred, may be cloned to overcome its failure at stud. The owner, Allen Paulson, hopes to produce a string of copies of the champion horse.
"We're certainly looking into it," Mr Paulson said. "There's no life in his sperm at all. They've checked over 20 mares, and all of them are barren. It's a big shock."
Mr Paulson said he intended to apply to the Jockey Club for permission to clone. Cigar captivated American racegoers and was held in affection similar to that for Red Rum in Britain. The horse won more than £6 million, a record 16 consecutive races, and was American horse of the year twice.
But the first dozen mares covered by the seven-year-old, at a fee of around £46,000 each, have all failed to become pregnant. To maintain high stud fees for champions, the American Jockey Club forbids artificial insemination. As yet there are no rules specifically on cloning, so Mr Paulson plans to raise the issue at a club meeting next month.
A spokesman for the British Jockey Club said that horse breeding was covered by the rules of the International Stud Book, which did not allow cloning. The rule in the International Stud Book covering artificial breeding states: "A horse is not qualified to be entered for start in any race unless it and its sire and dam are each the produce of a natural service or covering, and unless a natural gestation took place in, and the delivery was from, the body of the mare in which the horse was conceived."
The British Jockey Club spokesman said: "If we allowed cloning you could have 12 or 15 Red Rums running in the same race, but their value would be nothing."
Mr Paulson said he might still go ahead even if the Jockey Club ruled that he could not attempt to clone Cigar or race the offspring. "Although we probably wouldn't be able to use it for racing, it might be interesting to do it," he said.
Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland, who cloned Dolly the sheep, said they did not know when, if at all, they would be able to clone horses.
Cloning involves extracting genetic material from the cells of one animal, fusing it with an unfertilised egg which has had its own DNA removed, and implanting the resultant egg in a female animal's womb. A clone of Cigar would be a carbon copy and may also be sterile. However, it would also need to have the same life experiences as Cigar to reproduce its winning form.
spchk