In 1938, a German embryologist by the name of Hans Spemann had proposed the idea of a “fantastic experiment,” now known as cloning, involving the replacement of the nucleus of an egg with the nucleus of another cell and being able to grow an embryo from such an egg (Copernicus Science Centre, 2018). In 1952, Robert Briggs and Thomas King, both scientists, were the first to attempt the idea by cloning a Rana piplens frog; the experiment was unsuccessful. Since that time, many other attempts of cloning, most of which were unsuccessful and those that were successful the nucleus was not obtained from an adult animal. On the 5th of July, 1996, Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell successfully conducted a groundbreaking and landmarking experiment with the cloning of a sheep named “Dolly” (Orel, 1997). Wilmut and Campbell were able to successfully create a lamb, later named “Dolly” after Dolly Parton, by transferring the nucleus from that of the udder cell from an adult sheep into an enucleated egg. Prior to this experiment never before had a mammal been cloned, successfully at that, from an adult somatic cell.
This was such a groundbreaking experiment due to every cell’s nucleus containing a specific set of genetic information. Though, embryonic cells are readily available to activate any gene, the differentiated adult cells have shut down those genes that it no longer uses or those that are no longer needed for their specific functions (Jung-Taek, 2016). When an adult cell nucleus is used specifically as a donor, the genetic material within the nucleus must successfully reset to an embryotic state otherwise the embryo(s) fail to develop. Most often the resetting process is incomplete. Of the 277 attempts during the cloning experiment Wilmut and Campbell conducted, only one produced an embryo that was able to be carried to term in a surrogate mother (University of Utah, 2018).
On the 24th of January, 2018, scientists at the Institute of Neuroscience (ION) in Shanghai, China, reported their succession of an experiment conducted involving the use of gene-editing in order to disable a gene BMAL-1 (Liu, 2019), crucial to the sleep-wake cycle and partially responsible for the circadian rhythm, in macaque monkeys (Macaca fascicularis). The gene-editing tool they used called CRISPR, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindrop Repeats, involving a unique technology that allows geneticists and medical researchers to be able to edit parts of the genome by removing, adding or altering that specific DNA sequence (Xu, 2018). Those same scientists were then able to successfully clone one of the monkeys to produce five offspring with nearly identic genes. The production of the offspring brings hope to researchers to be able to potentially be able to generate custom model organisms resembling humans in order to understand and potentially find cures for genetic diseases such as brain diseases, cancer and other disorders observed in the human population. This, just like the successful cloning of Dolly, is groundbreaking due to this being the first ever time that researchers have cloned a gene-edited monkey which may just possibly revolutionize future biomedical research.
The downside to the specific gene BMAL-1 being switched off demonstrated an increase in anxiety and depression, reduced sleep time, and “schizophrenia-like behaviors” in the gene-edited monkeys, according to the Science China Press release (Gabbatiss, 2019). Furthermore, these monkeys might seem to be showing behaviors that mimic similarities for human disease, but the comparison of that between monkeys and humans does have an end point and with the deactivation of the BMAL-1 gene may seemingly have a different effect in humans. With that being said, in circumstances such as these and even more so without there being a scientific hypothesis centering their reasoning for conducting the experiment of gene-editing the monkeys, it raises ethical issues on whether the potential benefits to science are enough to warrant all of the harm to these monkeys and all that they have to endure. This essay will briefly consider the many factors – such as moral status of animals, boundary between “natural” and “unnatural,” consequences of genetic modifications, environment safety issues.
To begin, gene-editing or gene-modification, is a relatively new concept with many obscurities. “Gene-editing” is defined as the use of biotechnical techniques in order to make changes to a specific DNA sequence in the genome of a living organism (Cai, 2018). Gene-editing is still a very new concept and was brought to the limelight in the 1970’s and has been making headway since. Mainly, gene-editing has been seen in experiments conducted in animals but is now starting to pool over into humans with the first ever gene-edited babies, twin girls, being announced on 29 November 2018 (Marchione, 2018).
The debate over gene-editing is a very heated one and has separated quite a bit of the science community. It is argued whether gene-editing will be a scientific success and has strong suited benefits or could gene-editing pose unpredictable effects on the future generations and therefore unethically unacceptable (McKie, 2015). The argument from the opposing side is that of the unpredictability and it is seemingly what researchers fear the most for they are essentially dealing with a “higher life form,” especially since the technique of gene-editing has not really been conducted upon humans partially due to the United States having a congressional prohibition on using taxpayer funds for research that destroys human embryos. While gene-editing has sparked a lot of researchers’ curiosity and experiments being conducted all over using the gene-editing technique on animals some still argue that there is a clear violation of animal rights due to more harm, causing them to suffer and manipulating life for human purposes without the consideration of the interests of the animal and even more so, that its being done without any real hypotheses being tested just like in the cloning of the gene-edited monkeys and that animals should have the same basic rights as humans (Wilke, 2019). Not to mention, what if it ends up falling into the wrong hands and the technique is then being used for more harm than good?
On the other side of the debate, with this being such a huge scientific breakthrough and opening up the door to a whole new realm of possibilities, researchers argue that this technique has a great potential to eliminate and prevent hereditary diseases, a potential cure for AIDS and cancer, being able to give someone born with a genetic disease a favorable chance to live and potentially be used to eradicate diseases from future generations (Haridy, 2019). With that, researchers argue that those possibilities remain impossible without the further advances of this technique, especially since it allows them the possibility of being able to develop model organisms for their specific research experiments (Science China Press, 2019).
Personally I believe that gene-editing used in a case by case basis should be legal in the United States with respect to animals; only when the benefits outweigh the risks and strict regulations and guidelines outlining the exact criteria of such. Understandably, technological research is becoming more advanced by the minute and such techniques such as gene-editing could sophisticate medical research, helping benefit the entire worlds population however, could also result in a huge disaster if such techniques fall into the wrong hands where one could use it more so as a weapon than anything. With that being said, understanding the curiosity that lies within researchers with such powerful tools in their bare hands and wanting to explore the endless possibly of what they are all able to do, I tend to find myself on the fence when it comes to the current and ongoing research being conducted in today’s world with animals. One side of me agrees with the idea of exploring all in which this technique entails and without the exploration and “is it possible,” then such advancements such as gene-editing become rendered useless whereas, the other side of me doesn’t agree with doing unnecessary life-altering techniques without them being goal driven and essentially the subjects of the experiments, in this case animals, are brought upon them unnecessary harm and being nothing more than a “tool” to researchers.
In conclusion, researchers must consider the most ethical ways possible when conducting research experiments on animals, regardless of them not being human, not only because of moral ethics but also the fact that they still feel no different than a human does and also that they are being involuntarily subjected to these experiments without having a voice of their own. Several factors – such as animal rights, justification of research and if the benefits outweigh the risks – must be considered when deciding upon the ethical and moral status. In the case of the gene-editing monkeys, the gene BMAL-1 has been deactivated for really no other reason but to essentially mimic disorders of the circadian rhythm seen in many human diseases and nothing more being done (yet) other than cloning more primates with nearly identic genetic makeups and observing them with, now, negative psychological and mental behaviors. Would it have been more ethical for clear scientific hypotheses being tested as well as procedures to follow if behaviors, such as what the monkeys are exhibiting now, were to arise and doing something to ensure they were not enduring suffering? In this case, I don’t feel that cloning one of the monkeys to produce five offspring resembling the same genetic makeup was morally ethical. With what seems to be “blurred lines in the road” when it comes to situations like this, researchers much work together to ensure that the technological advances and experiments conducted on animals produces benefits, not only for future research but also to the animal, that outweigh the risks.
