Main   Terms   People   Interviews   Resources   Events

Application of Cloning to the Production of Biopharmaceuticals to Treat Human and Animal Disease

Eric Overström. Professor, Tufts University, School of Veterinary Medicine

Health Care: Human & Animals

Nuclear Transfer – Cloning

Advantages

  • Proven methodology in several species, recent reports of success in Sheep, cattle & pigs
  • Good efficiency, < ~ 98% of offspring are transgenic, demonstrates stable transgene integration & expression
  • Germline transgenesis
  • Less costly due to transfection/selection in vitro

Disadvantages

  • Methodology not optimized in domestic animals
  • Strategies for “knockout” & “knockin” constructs

Table 1. Development of caprine embryos reconstructed by nuclear transfer using CFF6 transgenic fetal somatic cells

Nuclear transfer protocols  Metaphase
II
Telophase 
II-Ca
Telophase
II- EtOH
Oocytes reconstructed  138  92  55
Oocyte lysis (%)  67 (48.5)  38 (41.3)  23 (41.8)
Embryo cleavage (%)  48 (34.8)  41 (44.6)  31 (58.4)
Embryos transferred (%)  37 (34)  38 (41.3)  27 (49.1)
Recipients  15  14  9
Ultrasound positive (%)
30 days 
9 (60)  11 (78.6)  5 (55.5)
40 days  1 (6.7) 1 (7.1) 0
60 days  1 (6.7) 1 (7.1) 0
Term pregnancy (%) 1 (6.7) 1 (7.1) 0
Offspring  1 2 0
% of embryos transferred  2.1 5.2 0
% of embryos reconstructed 0.7 2.2 0

 

Table 2. rhAT expression in CFF6-1 goat milk from an induced lactation

CFF6-1 induced
Lactation day 
hAT concentration
(g/liter)
hAT activity
(U/ml)
Day 3   4.7 N/D
Day 5  5.8  20.5
Day 6  5.0  18.3
Day 7  4.7  15.6
Day 8  4.1  14.4
Day 9  3.7  14.6

N/D: not determined

  Summary

  • Rational application of animal cloning to the production of biopharmaceuticals
  • Benefit to human and animal health
  • Animal welfare is not compromised
  • Advance fundamental understanding of mechanism that regulate normal and abnormal cell growth

Email link | Feedback | Contributed by: Boston University. Video adapted from the Issues for the Millennium Workshop

Application of Cloning to the Production of Biopharmaceuticals to Treat Human and Animal Disease


Introduction: Jensine Andresen and Robert Neville
John Westling - Introduction: Do we have dominion over ourselves?
Overcoming Preconception Relating to Assisted Reproductive Technologies
Implications of Animal Cloning Experiments for the Potential Cloning of Human Beings
Production of Embryonic Stem Cells from Differentiated Somatic Cells
Xenotransplantation and its Associated Safety and Ethical Issues
Excluding Life from Patenting: Arguments against the Patenting of Genes
Science Panel Discussion
Ethical Challenges in a Post Genome Era
Human Rights and the New Genetics
Human Rights and Cloning
Democratizing Decision Making Relating to Biotechnology
Genetics, the Market, and Policy
Much Ado About Mutton: An Ethical Review of the Cloning Controversy
Why Worry about Human Cloning?
Modified Natural-Law Approach to Genetic Technologies
Ethics Panel Discussion
The World is Our Parish...So...?
Re-engineering Creation: Theological Reservations Concerning Genetic Technology
Possible Presbyterian Responses to Cloning
Biostewardish Updates
No, Not Yet, Maybe, and Why Not: Protestant Ambivalence Or Moral Discretion?
Beginning Reflections of One Unitarian Universalist on Cloning and Genetic Technologies
A Catholic Perspective on Cloning and Stem Cell Research
Created in Whose Image and Likeness? An Orthodox Christian Approach to Human Cloning
Thomas Shannon - "Playing God"
But Who Speaks for Me? The Need for the Religous Voice in Bioethics
In God's Garden: Creation and Cloning in Jewish Thought
A Jewish Perspective on Cloning and Other Techniques to Overcome Infertility
Islamic Perspectives on Cloning and Genetic Enginerring
A Hindu View based on Dharma, Karma and Yoga of Human Cloning and Genetic Technologies
The Bioethics of Interdependence: Shin Buddhist Attitudes on Human Cloning
Moral Imagination
Interreligious Panel Discussion
Science and the Courts
Beyond Biology: Regulating Ownership in a Knowledge-based Economy
Biotechnology and International Trade
Disharmonization in Agricultural Biotechnology
Historical Notes Relating to the Patenting of Biological Inventions
Should Morality be Within the Purview of Patent Law?
The International Treatment of Biotechnological Intellectual Property (BIP)
Legal Issues Panel Discussion
Science, Politics and Ethics of Cloning and Genetic Engineering: Who will Decide the Future of Humankind?
Cloning and Beyond: Making Laws for Making Babies
Issues For the Millennium: Cloning and Genetic Technologies - Index

Source:

Boston University

See also:

Genetics
Ethics
Controversy
Ecology
Theology
Health
Pain and Suffering
Opinions
Books on Biology, Genetics and Theology
Dolly the Cloned Sheep
Egg Manipulation
Chromosome
DNA Double-Helix