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VIVA – The ban on human cloning was introduced in Paris, France on January 12, 1998, in the Protocol to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine. Alexey Deykin, senior scientist at the Institute of Gene Biology at the Russian Academy of Sciences discusses recent developments and ethical issues.
Almost three decades ago the world was amazed by the creation of the first cloned sheep, named Dolly, who would live for seven years. Cloning is the process of producing genetically identical copies of cells or organisms.
However, the technology scientific breakthrough was accompanied by ethical concerns over potential "genetic manipulation" targeting human beings. Therefore, the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on Bioethics came up with the protocol prohibiting human cloning, which was signed in Paris on 12 January 1998.
Cloning experiments with mammalian species continued and 25 years later, China's first registered cloned warm-blooded horse named Zhuangzhuang trotted onto the world stage on 12 January 2023, in Beijing. Zhuangzhuang is not the first cloned horse in the world: many countries have been using the technology to advance their biomedical research.
"(Human) cloning is a necessary element in the development technology of biomedical research in general. For the past 10 to 15 years, genetic and embryonic technologies have been an instrument for the development of this kind,” a senior scientist at the Institute of Gene Biology in Russia’s Academy of Sciences, Alexey Deykin stated.
Although human cloning is forbidden, the products of the technology have already been used to treat humans, according to scientists. To illustrate his point, Deykin cited the first transplant of a genetically altered pig heart into a person by a medical team at the University of Maryland's Medical Center, in the United States, in January 2022.
"Formally, this is transplantation, cardiovascular surgery," the researcher said. "But where did this pig come from? The pig was developed by modifying the genome. Moreover, at some stages, this genome was modified in somatic cells. And by cloning, these modifications were transferred, as they were, into a living organism. First, all changes were obtained in tissue culture. And then from this tissue culture, by the method of cloning and the transfer of cell nuclei, a living animal was created, in which this heart grew." Alexey Deykin explained in a statement, as quoted from the Sputniknews site.
The pig was raised by Revivicor, a US firm that spun off from the UK company that helped to clone Dolly the sheep, according to the weekly scientific journal Nature. The animal cell surfaces did not have a sugar molecule called ?-1,3-galactose, or ?-gal, which triggers the human immune system.
The 57-year-old man, who received the transplant, was ineligible for a human heart and certain to die soon. Two months after the surgery the patient died nonetheless. Still, according to US scientists, he survived longer than anyone had realistically expected.
Deykin does not rule out that the world scientific community may sooner or later start cloning humans despite international legal prohibitions and ethical concerns. For example, Russian researchers refer to the non-transparent US overseas bio-laboratories, some of which are allegedly involved in bio-warfare research.
According to legal observers, this work is done in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the US Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 (BWATA).
During the ongoing special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense obtained sensitive documents revealing the scope of the US Department of Defense or Pentagon's bio-warfare activities on the territory of the Eastern European country.
