The Island Research Paper
Cloning is a naturally occurring phenomenon, as well as a human induced process. A clone is a living organism deriving from another, with identical set of genes. A naturally occurring anthropological example of a clone would be twins, a set of individuals with identical DNA. A laboratory-induced clone would be stem cell production and animal cloning. In the movie The Island by Michael Bay, the concept of cloning is used as a life insurance policy to elongate the life of a natural born individual. This medical use of cloning has been under the experimental stage for quite sometime now and under ethical question. There are three different ways of cloning, recombinant DNA technology or DNA cloning, reproductive cloning, and therapeutic cloning. Recombinant DNA technology or DNA cloning is the transfer of a DNA fragment of interest from one organism to a self-replicating genetic material such as a bacterial plasmid. A gene is cloned by removing the DNA fragment of interest from the chromosome, by using restriction enzymes and then placing it into a plasmid, which was cut by the same restriction enzymes. Once the DNA fragment is attached with the plasmid it is called “recombinant DNA”, it can now be reproduced with the host cell. This isn’t fairly new technology, it’s been around since the 1970’s, and is widely used in molecular biology labs. When studying a particular gene, scientists tend to use bacterial plasmids to propagate multiple copies of the same gene. During the human genome project, bacterial plasmids where mostly used to generate genes and pieces of chromosomes for in-depth study. Apart from bacterial plasmids, some other cloning agents include viruses, bacteria artificial chromosomes, and yeast artificial chromosomes. Reproductive cloning is the process by which an animal is given rise to with identical nuclear DNA of that of an already existing animal. The process by which reproductive cloning occurs is called “somatic cell nuclear transfer.” This
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