Wednesday, 11 May 2016

5.20 evaluate the potential for using cloned transgenic animals, for example to produce commercial quantities of human antibodies or organs for transplantation

When evaluating, you just need to go over the positives and negatives and weigh up which is more (more positives or more negatives)

Positives
- Animals can produce medicines in their milk. Human genes can be transferred into animals to produce human antibodies to fight illnesses such as arthritis, multiple sclerosis and some types of cancer.
- Animals have organs suitable for transplant into humans (e.g. pigs). They could be developed by genetic engineering then cloned.
- Farmers do not have to wait for a 'good animal' like with normal breeding, all their animals could be beneficial with cloning

Negatives
- Cloned animals MAY not be as healthy as normal animals
- Lots of mistakes; embryos from cloned animals often do not develop well/efficiently/normally
- It is difficult, expensive and time consuming
- There may be long term risks that we are unaware of

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