Republic of the Philippines

College of Engineering and Architecture

Electrical Engineering Department

“Medical Evolution: Breaking Boundaries in Human Cloning”

Researchers:

Adrian R. Motea
Jhae Art S. De Jesus
Louie T. Reasonda
Lemmuel A. Allado
Von Khirby J. Eupalao
 Instructor:
Mr. Krystian Carvajal

Hypothesis

The successful implementation of human cloning in 2050

revolutionized medicine, providing solutions to organ shortages,

personalized therapies, and advances in regenerative medicine

Introduction

Human life is priceless and has a worth that exceeds all standards.

However, the scarcity of viable organs for transplant is a clear and tragic

reality that results in an unbelievable amount of deaths. The scarcity of

suitable organs for transplant continues to be a serious concern in the

medical field, forcing people to remain on waiting lists and desire for a

chance to regain their health and energy.

According to Welle (2019), India has one of the lowest rates of organ

donation in the world, trailing well behind the rest of the world. Experts feel

that considerable improvements are required to increase the South Asian

nation's donor rate. Other countries are experiencing organ shortages as well.

Based to the PMC or Pubmed Central (2019), New York had the lowest

organ donor registration rate (22.7%) while Oregon had the highest (56.7%).
The 2019 data from the International Registry in Organ Donation and

Transplantation (IRODAT) states that the United States alone, a staggering

number of more than 100,000 people are persistently waiting for an organ

transplant, a figure reflected in tens of thousands around the world. the rate

of organ donation in European countries such as Spain was 49.9 patients per

million population (ppmp) while the Philippines only had a rate of 0.087

ppmp. Every day that a suitable donor organ isn’t accessible signifies a race

against time, a fight for survival, and, unfortunately, the loss of a life. This

scarcity highlights the critical need for new ways to bridge the gap between

organ supply and demand, bring hope where despair lurks, and recognize the

dignity of every life waiting for a second shot at life through transplantation.

Meanwhile, In the area of medical advances, creating cloned humans

or human organs captures our imagination and sheds speculative light on the

field of medicine. The year 2050, the field of human cloning is emerging as

a fascinating field waiting for technology to revolutionize medicine. This

case study embarks on a visionary journey and explores the potential of

cloned humans as a beacon of hope in the field of medicine. Human cloning

refers to the scientific process of creating an identical genetic copy of a

human organs or human being.

 The concept of human cloning has been a topic of interest and debate

for many years. The origins of human cloning can be traced back to the

scientific breakthroughs and advancements in reproductive technologies.

According to Gunn (2021) the roots of cloning began in the nineteenth

century. In 1885, German biologist Hans Driesch showed that blastomeres of

two-cell sea urchin embryos could be physically separated and two entire

embryos formed from each blastomere. This was the first-ever

demonstration of artificial embryo twinning, the process of separating

embryonic cells in the early stages of development. Each separated cell

continues to grow and can be implanted into a surrogate. In agreement with

Shannon Gunn, George Vaniotis (2021) stated that scientists first began

studying the process of artificial cloning at the turn of the last century, when

a German scientist, Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch, began researching

reproduction in salamanders. In 1902, he created a set of twin salamanders

by dividing an embryo into two separate, viable embryos.

Runetta et al. (2019) stated in their article that reproductive

cloning was originally carried out by artificial “twinning,” or embryo

splitting, which was first performed on a salamander embryo in the early

1900s by German embryologist Hans Spemann. Later, Spemann, developed

another cloning procedure known as nuclear transfer. This procedure was

performed in 1952 by American scientists Robert W. Briggs and Thomas J.

King who used DNA from embryonic cells of the frog Rana pipiens to

generate cloned tadpoles. In 1958 British biologist John Bertrand Gurdon

successfully carried out nuclear transfer using DNA from adult intestinal

cells of African clawed frogs.

Alberio and Wolf (2021) concluded that the birth of "Dolly the sheep"

in 1996 marked a groundbreaking achievement, challenging the long-held

belief in irreversible cellular differentiation. Dolly was significant in that she

was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. Her birth demonstrated that

specialized cells might be employed to produce an exact recreation of the

animal from which they originated. This discovery altered scientists’

perceptions of what was possible and opened up new avenues of research in

biology and medicine, including the production of personalized stem cells

known as iPS cells. Soon after the generation of Dolly, a number of other

animals were cloned including pigs, goats, rats, mice, dogs, horses, and

mules.

Moreover, the milestones achieved by Wolf and Mitalipov,

particularly In creating a monkey from cell nuclei, highlight the possibility

of cloning genetic abnormalities in other animals for large-scale studies,

leading to better solutions and treatments. This advance enables the creation
of patient-specific genetic diseases in animal models and simplifies the

testing of drug effectiveness and side effects. Transferring the nucleus from a

human skin biopsy to mice or monkeys creates an egg with patient-specific

disease expression, enabling clinical studies in animal models and ultimately

leading to more effective medical approaches.

December 27, 2002, a group of scientist announced that the first

cloned baby had been born the day before. The girl, named Eve by the

cloning team, was said to have been born by Caesarean section at 1155 EST.

The birth at an undisclosed location went “very well”, said Brigitte

Boisselier, president of Clonaid. The company was formed in 1997. By

2004, Clonaid claimed to have successfully brought to life 14 human clones.

These claims are widely disbelieved, in part because Clonaid did not allow

independent testing of the babies, supposedly to protect the privacy of the

babies and their families. Other scientist succeeded in using the Dolly

process, technically called somatic cell nuclear transfer, to clone humans.

There are two primary methods of cloning humans: reproductive

cloning and therapeutic cloning. Reproductive cloning aims to create a

cloned human for the purpose of producing a fully developed individual. On

the other hand, therapeutic cloning focuses on creating cloned cells or

tissues for medical purposes, such as generating organs for transplantation or

studying specific diseases.

Yu (2022) claimed that the potential of therapeutic cloning to repair

organs in the body is extremely promising, particularly to alleviate the

severe shortage of organs available for transplantation. The integration of

therapeutic cloning represents a ray of hope and offers a possible solution to

shorten the long and arduous treatment times that patients often face. The

alarming statistic of more than 20 deaths waiting for organ donations every

day highlights the urgency of innovative interventions. Kidney waiting

times, which can last up to five years or even longer in certain cases, place a

significant burden on patients looking for suitable partners. The widespread

availability of therapeutic cloning could revolutionize organ transplantation,

eliminating these long waits and offering a glimmer of hope to countless

people in desperate need. The controlled environment enabled by therapeutic

cloning represents a viable option for creating critical organs, effectively

eliminating waiting times and potentially saving significant long-term

healthcare costs. Furthermore, the identical DNA match between the cloned

organ and the recipient prevents the possibility of organ rejection after

transplantation, thus providing a definitive solution to this ongoing problem.

 Therapeutic cloning represents a transformative prospect in which

dependence on donor organs could become obsolete. The prevailing medical

paradigm requires the death of one person so that another person can benefit

from a life-saving heart transplant. This reliance on deceased donors and the

need for a precise match between donor and recipient pose significant

challenges in obtaining organs for transplantation and make them extremely

scarce. The need for viable organs at the time of a donor’s death, coupled

with strict compatibility criteria, exacerbates the shortage and complexity of

organ procurement. However, the advent of therapeutic cloning offers an

innovative alternative that may make reliance on donor organs unnecessary.

This innovative approach to organ recovery avoids reliance on deceased

donors, provides a prospective solution to the critical shortage of organs for

transplantation, and avoids the need for an exact match between donor and

recipient. The ability to grow and maintain organs through therapeutic

cloning could revolutionize the organ transplant landscape, enabling a

sustainable and affordable supply of organs without having to wait for a

tragic loss of life.

However, the ethical and social considerations surrounding these

advances cannot be ignored. This narrative addresses the complex web of

ethical dilemmas, carefully balancing the benefits with the moral

implications. It envisions a future in which cloned human tissues are

seamlessly integrated into healthcare systems while reflecting public

acceptance. At the heart of this narrative is the prospect of personalized

medical therapies, in which cloned human cells pave the way for treatments

tailored to individual genetic profiles. This innovative paradigm ensures that

precision medicine reaches new heights. As we embark on this visionary

odyssey through medical innovation, ethical considerations, and social

introspection, let us outline the hypothetical creation of cloned humans in

2050.

Cloning applies the idea of gene alteration, which is significant in the

improvement of productivity and health of livestock and crops, this ensures

that the plants and animals are even more adaptable to the new environment

and therefore have more survival skills and adaptability; this means that the

humans are protecting God’s creations from extinction through this

technology. For humans to protect and take care of God’s creations they

need to, first of all, take care of themselves, they need to survive in the

future, they need to be healthy and strong, they need to live as long as

possible. Cloning will offer them these opportunities.

What moral right might protect at least some access to the use of

human cloning? Some commentators have argued that a commitment to

individual liberty, as defended by J. S. Mill (2016), requires that individuals

be left free to use human cloning if they so choose and if their doing so does

not cause significant harms to others, but liberty is too broad in scope to be

an uncontroversial moral right . Human cloning is a means of reproduction

(in the most literal sense), and so the most plausible moral right at stake in

its use is a right to reproductive freedom or procreative liberty. Reproductive

freedom includes not only the familiar right to choose not to reproduce, for

example by means of contraception or abortion, but also the right to

reproduce.

Moreover, There is a different moral right which might be thought to

be at stake in the dispute about human cloning—the right to freedom of

scientific inquiry and research in the acquisition of knowledge. If there is

such a right, it would presumably be violated by a legal prohibition of

research on human cloning, although the government could still permissibly

decide not to spend public funds to support such research. Leaving aside for

the moment human subject ethical concerns, research on human cloning

might provide valuable scientific medical knowledge beyond simply

knowledge about how to carry out human cloning. Whether or not there is a

moral right to freedom of scientific inquiry—for example, as part of a right

to free expression—prohibiting and stopping scientific research and inquiry

is a serious matter and precedent which should only be undertaken when

necessary to prevent grave violations of human rights or to protect

fundamental interests. But even for opponents of human cloning, the

fundamental moral issue is not acquiring the knowledge that would make it

possible, but using that knowledge to do human cloning. Since it is possible

to prohibit human cloning itself, without prohibiting all research on it, it is

not necessary to limit the freedom of scientific inquiry in order to prevent

human cloning from taking place. But this means as well that a right to

freedom of scientific inquiry could only protect research on human cloning,

not its use. For this reason, I believe the fundamental moral right which

provides presumptive moral support for permitting the use of human cloning

is the right to reproductive freedom, not the right to freedom of scientific

inquiry.

In addition, The extraction of embryonic stem cells, integral to

therapeutic cloning, remains a contentious issue for many. Ethical concerns

persist irrespective of whether these cells are intended to alleviate the

suffering of individuals afflicted by ailments. The utilization of this

technology raises ethical red flags for some, underscoring the moral

quandaries associated with manipulating human embryos. Moreover, the

relatively simplified process of cloning humans using female egg cells alone
poses a complex ethical dilemma. The unrestricted capacity for reproduction

through cloning, relying solely on female egg cells, potentially undermines

the importance of male procreation in human reproduction. This aspect

could significantly influence societal norms regarding family ethics and

traditions. The transformative potential of therapeutic cloning is

overshadowed by the ethical complexities it introduces, sparking debates

surrounding the morality of manipulating human embryos and reshaping the

fundamental fabric of traditional family ethics. This imagined world has the

potential to reshape healthcare and usher in a new era of medical

possibilities. It is important to note that human cloning raises various ethical,

moral, and legal concerns. Cloning technology is still in the experimental

stage and has not been successfully implemented for reproducing a full-term

human clone. Many countries have banned or put restrictions on human

cloning due to these ethical considerations.

Assumption
In the envisioned scenario of 2050, the realm of human cloning has

experienced unprecedented progress, reshaping the dynamics of organ

transplantation. The advent of organ cloning emerges as a groundbreaking

solution, significantly altering the trajectory of healthcare outcomes.

 The ethical pros and cons of human cloning, as we see them at this

time, are sufficiently balanced and uncertain that there is not an ethically

decisive case either for or against permitting it or doing it. Contrary to the

pronouncements of many of its opponents, human cloning seems not to be a

violation of moral or human rights. But it does risk some significant

individual or social harms, although most are based on common public

confusions about genetic determinism, human identity, and the effects of

human cloning. Because most moral reasons against doing human cloning

remain speculative, they seem insufficient to warrant at this time a complete

legal prohibition of either research on or use of human cloning.

The transformative impact of human cloning extends beyond mere

survival, it introduces shifts in healthcare accessibility. Previously

insurmountable barriers, such as the prohibitive costs of organ procurement

or the extended durations spent on waiting lists, have been dismantled .

Human cloning stands as a pivotal force In this evolution, offering the

capability to develop tissues and organs that harmonize seamlessly with

patients’ immune systems. This breakthrough eliminates the hurdles of

exorbitant costs and lengthy waitlists, ushering in a new era of healthcare

accessibility.
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