Types of Cloning - Essay Example

On the other hand, in animals, the clone is a creation from one cell that is taken from the parent making the offspring and parent genetically identical (Tsunoda and Kato, 158-161). Different types of cloning can be divided into molecular and cellular cloning. The former is comprised of stem cell cloning and unicellular cloning. These serve an ideal purpose in the research of different pathologies, physiological functions as well as provide a platform for testing future treatment options. There are many ethical factors to consider in the cloning process and one has to weigh the benefits and potentially harmful consequences of cloning. When all the factors are put into perspective, cloning is a revolutionary scientific process that should be given a greater opportunity to improve humanity and the quality of life.  

            Cloning has different levels of significance and these depend on the field one is studying. This factor alone shows the diverse benefits of cloning. Plant cloning is essentially important to farmers, as it enables the duplication of plants with the artificial selection of desired genes (Freudenrich, n.p). This has both economic benefits for the farmer as he or she can reduce the number of expenses in protecting crops, and a social benefit as populations with food shortages can yield more crops. The process of plant cloning equips the farmer with the exact knowledge of the plant that he or she is growing. The procedures involved in cloning plants are more simplistic than those applied in animal cloning. An identical plant can be yielded by obtaining a piece of the root tip from a plant (Freudenrich, n.p). Following this, the cells from the root are dissociated and cultured in a nutrient medium. The root cells are allowed to form calluses and then grown in the soil medium.

 Animal cloning is more complicated and involves different procedures of molecular cloning. The main steps in the cloning process include fragmentation, ligation, transfection, and screening. As mentioned above there are different types of cellular cloning and these include unicellular cloning which is done in a culture in the presence of cloning rings. The cell is placed in the presence of a mutagenic element and this help helps isolate colonies which are then placed in polystyrene rings. These colonies are then mixed with trypsin. The cells are then removed from the rings and growth is done on another sterile medium.

            In summation, the benefits of cloning are both economic and scientific. They enable farmers to yield more crops with less financial input. Cloning also opens the door for therapeutic uses as it can be used for tissue replacement in degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s (Tsunoda and Kato, 158-161).