How does therapeutic cloning work?
In the same way that Dolly the sheep was created. Scientists take genetic material from a cell in an adult’s body and fuse it with an empty egg cell. They trigger this to grow into an embryo. Inside the embryo are master cells with the potential to develop into any of the 216 cell types that make up the body, including nerve tissue, blood, heart muscle and brain cells. Since 1998, scientists have been able to isolate and culture these cells. Individual cells could be removed and implanted into our bodies to repair the damage caused by degenerative illnesses like heart disease. What are the benefits of therapeutic cloning? The new tissue could be used to treat disease. Transplant patients would no longer have to wait for someone else’s tissue that their bodies might reject. They can have themselves cloned to produce perfect match tissue. This would do away with the powerful anti-rejection drugs needed to tame the immune systems of transplant patients. Some experts believe it may be poss
