Posted on 08/30/2004 4:48:46 PM PDT by JOAT
A FERTILITY expert is set to provoke international uproar this week by claiming he has taken the first step towards cloning a dead human being.
In what many will regard as a grotesque experiment, maverick American scientist Dr Panos Zavos will announce that he has taken DNA from two corpses and used it to create embryonic clones of the dead people.
Zavos says he has taken DNA from an 11-year-old girl called Cady and a 33-year-old man, both of whom died in road accidents, and implanted it into living eggs that subsequently divided in the laboratory to form embryos.
But an attempt to make a third clone, using DNA taken from a dummy and nasal extractor belonging to a baby who died, has so far failed to provide results.
The controversial experiment is certain to provoke a furious backlash from critics, who will accuse Zavos, from Lexington, Kentucky, of using gruesome Frankenstein science and of playing God.
It will also lead to accusations that he is exploiting vulnerable people by raising false hopes that they can bring their dead loved ones back.
Earlier this year Dr Zavos claimed to have implanted a cloned human embryo in a woman's womb. The announcement was greeted with derision by mainstream scientists and fertility experts, who called his work odious.
He later revealed the attempt had been unsuccessful.
The doctor will announce details of his macabre new research in London tomorrow, but Britain's The Mail on Sunday was given a preview of a film in which he claims to be helping three families to create genetic replicas of loved ones who have died.
In the film by award-winning British documentary maker Peter Williams, who recorded the creation of the world's first IVF baby, Louise Brown, in 1978, Zavos claims to have implanted DNA taken from the corpses into living cow eggs.
These are bigger than a human egg and therefore easier to manipulate. The cells started to divide to create embryos but were not allowed to go beyond 64 cells.
Zavos says he would never consider putting the resulting hybrid embryos into a human womb, nor could they survive anyway.
But he claims the same technique could be used to implant DNA from a corpse into a human egg, creating an embryo that, if implanted into a womb, could develop into a true clone of the dead person.
Of course any other kind of womb is fair game....
Oh great, more Rat voters.
Holy s*** BatMan Frankenstein lives, it lives..
This guy was once a serious researcher in the field of reproductive technology, but flipped out somewhere along the line. If he keeps going the way he has been, he'll soon overtake the Raelians at the head of the wacko brigade.
Visions of "Pet Cemetary"...
"Reanimator."
I read a series of books about a scientist that cloned a person from DNA taken from the shroud of turin. Nothing good came from it.
How in the world do you guarantee that the cloned person will be the "exact" same??? Its just the physical features being cloned. Scary.
The problem with clones, is that although they may gestate normally; they develop unforseeable problems shortly after birth.
Cancer, tumors, erratic growth spurts; every single (no exceptions yet) clone has had to be 'put down' well before entering 'middle age' due to medical problems that the original did NOT have. This was true for cats, sheep, frogs and cattle. Until we get this figured out, I would be opposed to moving to something as complex as a human. And no one has a clue as to why ..... frankly, I'm at a loss too.
Besides, the old fashioned method has worked pretty well so far; if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Man, does this guy have name right out the SCI-FI/ Horror genre or what?
No kidding. Sounds like a comic book villian.
"The Boys From Brazil"
I will put my Christian opinion of this kind of research. Back in Noah's day, the Nephalim were hybrids of fallen angels and men. The bible says the earth became filled with violence and that is why the flood came. I have a feeling that this form of creation will not make it very far.
Elvis, King Tut, Marilyn Monroe, Abe Lincoln....the possibilities are endless.
Big money maker. Think escort services, nightclubs etc.
Maybe buchanan could have another political career.
This is the plot from The Boys From Brazil...and Hitler clones.
There is no way a clone could be exactly the same. There are simply too many environmental factors for one. The values and upbringing, experiences etc. are impossible to duplicate.
From a religious perspective, every person is a unique creation of God. His sense of humor would probably dictate a 'Hitler' clone be given a very passive personality the second time around. A librarian or something.....
weird bump
There is the caveat, you cannot clone a soul.
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