Asexual reproduction: Promises many important applications

On February 23, 1996, scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announced success in giving Dolly asexual reproduction. It has been 10 years since then, although much controversy, the birth of Dolly has promised many important applications in human life.

First breakthrough

Although it died more than 3 years ago, Dolly sheep has entered medical history as the world's first mammal born from asexual reproduction technology. The creation of Dolly is done by a technology called " human cell transfer ."

Accordingly, the nucleus of the egg will be removed from the egg and replaced by the nucleus of the animal selected for cloning. The eggs will then be treated with electricity or chemicals to convert into embryos before being implanted in the animal's uterus.

Since then, scientists have continued to successfully replicate dozens of other animals, such as cows, goats, pigs, horses, deer, mules, mice, cats, dogs, and even rare and active animals. threatened with extinction, such as Java wild cattle, African wild cats .

To create Dolly sheep, experts had to undergo 277 successful new asexual reproduction. Today, on average, it takes between 150 and 200 experiments to duplicate an animal. Obviously the situation has improved, but not much .

Will animal cloning help humanity?

After Dolly sheep died in 2003, its body was
stuffed inside and displayed at the Royal Museum in
Edinburgh, Scotland (Photo: BBC)

Asexual reproduction will give more meat, better meat

It is hoped that animal cloning technology will help producers and farmers produce healthier livestock.

Jim Greenwood, president and general manager of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), said since Dolly's birth until now, researchers have found safer cloning techniques and higher quality, thus creating healthier animals.

Regarding the application of asexual reproductive technology, Mr. Greenwood said: 'We are now using this technology to improve food production and food safety in developing countries, the health of cattle. and safety of food supplies. Asexual reproduction will also help overcome the risk of extinction of some wild animals, such as giant pandas'.

Asexual reproduction: Memorable milestones

1981 : Gail Martin at the University of California, San Francisco and Martin Evans of the University of Cambridge, for the first time, isolated embryonic stem cells from mice.

February 23 , 1996 : Scientists announce the successful replication of the first mammal, Dolly (born at Roslin Institute).

July 1988 : Ishikawa (Japan) Animal Research Center successfully cloned the first two cows named Noto and Kaga,

2001 : He became the first country to legalize human cloning methods for research purposes

2/2003 : Dolly Sheep died

4/2003 : Scientists completed the genetic sequence of humans

2/2004 : Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk and his team announced the creation of 30 cloned human embryos and separated germ cells.

August 2005 : Dr. Hwang releases the first dog with asexual reproduction, Snuppy,

January 2006 : Dr. Hwang is alleged to have fabricated research results on asexual reproduction in humans. A few months later, he had to go to court in Korea about this.

July 2006 : President Bush rejected a bill related to investing in additional federal funding for stem cell research.

In December 2006, the US Drug and Drug Administration (FDA) published a draft risk assessment, which concluded that animal meat and milk reproductive asexuals are safe for consumers. pass.

In addition, it is no different from the meat of animals originating from traditional breeding methods.

According to experts, although products from cloned animals are not available in the market, in the future, consumers will benefit from more homogenous, healthier and more consistent meat and milk products. Richer, produced from asexual animals.

At the same time, cloning animals also promises to create animals with better characteristics. This is really meaningful in improving the quality of cattle breeds.

The meaning of Dolly's asexual reproduction is also an important future application for the health sector.

Germ cell research: There is much controversy

Succeeding in creating Dolly sheep has provided the motivation for scientists to promote research on germplasm with the ultimate goal of improving human health.

Germ cells are considered ' host ' cells.

Contained in the central part of the embryo, germ cells are the type of cells that are able to convert into any cell necessary for body parts, such as bone, blood, brain .

Currently, physicians are exploiting the germ cell's ability to find effective medical therapies. According to experts, germ cells can be used in the treatment of diseases such as diabetes, stroke, blindness . However, scientists believe that they are facing many obstacles not only on the technical side. Art, but also morally in the exploitation and application of germ cells.

Currently, the use of germ cells is a controversial issue. Many people believe that fetal stem cells are inviolable. Therefore, adult stem cells are being considered an alternative. Because there are many unfavorable conditions, so far, there have not been many cases of using stem cells for clinical testing on the human body.

But, what makes the public more interested, is that if one can reproduce a cloned animal like Dolly sheep, can it create a human from asexual reproduction?

Research on asexual reproduction in humans: Be cautious

Although many efforts are being concentrated on the area of ​​animal cloning, scientists still care about the asexual reproduction of humans. Many groups of experts around the world have tried to create germ cell lines from asexual embryos but no one has succeeded.

People still remember scandal related to Mr. Hwang Woo Suk, from Seoul National University.

He has claimed to have created stem cell lines from asexual embryos, and his report has been published in Nature, a prestigious scientific journal of experts. Eventually, it was discovered that the content reported was false.

Many people believe that human duplication is an immoral act.

In their view, a cloned embryo is a potential human life, so it is wrong to destroy such a life. They argue that the creation of asexual embryo is a very difficult moral issue.

There are also doubts that asexual reproduction seems to create organisms with health problems.

Vietnam: Research capacity is not lacking, the issue is policy and human resources

MSc. Tran Cam Tu , Animal Cell Technology Department - Institute of Tropical Biology

Talking about stem cell research and cloning, technically, Vietnamese researchers are fully capable of doing so.

Currently, Ho Chi Minh City has two very feasible stem cell research projects. One, the study of the University of Science - Natural Ho Chi Minh City, studied a number of differentiation processes of germ cells in the laboratory. Two, is a joint project between Ho Chi Minh City University of Natural Sciences and Ho Chi Minh City Medical Training Center with the topic of studying adult stem cells at the edge of the cornea of ​​people and applications. in corneal transplants.

In Hanoi, GS's research team. Dr. Nguyen Mong Hung is continuing to study stem cells in chickens and at the same time studying stem cells on fish. In addition, GS. Hung also participated in a topic branch of Hanoi Medical University in human stem cell research.

Vietnam in general, Ho Chi Minh City in particular, has relatively adequate equipment. 'Relative' here refers to a fairly synchronous, but scattered array of equipment, but if combined between schools and research institutes, those devices become very useful.

The problem lies in manpower!

Vietnam lacks the leading experts in stem cell research. Besides, Vietnam has many groups of stem cell research and cloning, but still quite private, almost lack of combination so there is no big echo in this field.

Besides, Vietnam does not have a legal document to guide specific stem cell research.Therefore, stem cell research, especially on human embryos, has not been developed strongly.It is important that we need a stem cell research and development strategy: What to do?And, what do you want to do?

(H. Cat comb records)

Quang Thinh