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**The Elusive Human Clone: A Chronicle of Attempts, Deceptions, and Ethical Crossroads**

 

The prospect of human cloning, once relegated to the realm of science fiction, burst into public consciousness with the successful cloning of Dolly the sheep in July 1996.

**The Elusive Human Clone: A Chronicle of Attempts, Deceptions, and Ethical Crossroads**

 This landmark achievement by Scotland's Roslin Institute, creating the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell, immediately ignited a global debate: if sheep, why not humans? The ensuing decades have witnessed a complex interplay of scientific ambition, sensational claims, outright fraud, and profound ethical considerations, effectively keeping reproductive human cloning an unrealized and widely condemned endeavor.

The scientific community generally defines human cloning,

 particularly reproductive cloning, as the creation of a genetically identical human through somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). This technique involves taking a somatic cell (like a skin cell) from an individual, extracting its DNA-containing nucleus, and transferring it into an enucleated donor egg cell. 

• If stimulated to divide, this reconstructed egg could theoretically develop into
•  an embryo, which, if implanted into a surrogate mother, might result in a
•  cloned human.

 

Following Dolly's debut

 several organizations and individuals made bold, often unsubstantiated, claims regarding human cloning. Perhaps the most notorious was **Clonaid**, an organization established in 1997 by the Raëlian sect, which believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials. Led by French biochemist Brigitte Boisselier, Clonaid initially operated a laboratory in West Virginia, USA, with the explicit aim of cloning humans.

1.  This drew the attention of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
2.  which intervened and halted their operations. Undeterred, Clonaid relocated
3.  to the Bahamas. In December 2002, Boisselier sensationally announced the
4.  birth of "Eve," purportedly the world's first cloned human baby. By 2004,
5.  Clonaid claimed to have facilitated the birth of 13 more cloned infants.
6.  However, no verifiable scientific evidence was ever presented, and the
7.  scientific community overwhelmingly dismissed these assertions as baseless
8.  and likely fraudulent.

 

While Clonaid's claims lacked credibility

the scientific world faced its own significant deception. South Korean scientist **Hwang Woo-suk** garnered international acclaim in 2004 by reporting the successful cloning of human embryos and the derivation of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines from them. 

• In 2005, he further claimed to have produced 11 patient-specific hESC lines. This was initially hailed as a monumental breakthrough for therapeutic cloning – creating cloned embryos not for reproduction, but to harvest stem cells for research and potential treatments.

 However, by the end of 2005, a devastating investigation revealed that Hwang's research was entirely fabricated, a massive scientific fraud that sent shockwaves through the research community and severely damaged public trust.

 

Despite these setbacks and deceptions 

legitimate research into primate and human SCNT for therapeutic purposes continued, albeit cautiously. In 2007, Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov and his team at Oregon Health & Science University successfully produced cloned rhesus macaque embryos and derived embryonic stem cell lines.

1.  Six years later, in 2013, Mitalipov's group announced a significant breakthrough: the creation of human embryos via SCNT (initially using fetal cells, and later adult skin cells) and the successful derivation of hESC lines from these cloned embryos. This achievement was subsequently replicated by other laboratories. Crucially, Mitalipov 

and other reputable scientists have never attempted to transfer such cloned human embryos into a womb for gestation, underscoring a clear ethical boundary against reproductive cloning.

 

The ethical landscape surrounding human cloning 

is fraught with profound concerns. These include the high probability of severe physiological, psychological, and social harms to any cloned individual, and the potential for significant loss of life during the experimental process, given the inefficiencies and abnormalities observed in animal cloning.

1.  Many argue that human cloning intrinsically violates principles of human
2.  dignity, individuality, and equality. A clone would share genetic material but
3.  would be a distinct individual with unique experiences and personality traits,
4.  not a mere replica.

 

Regulatory bodies have also weighed in. As early as 1998, the US FDA asserted its jurisdiction over human cloning for reproductive purposes, citing safety concerns.

 In 2018, the European Commission’s bioethics committee emphasized that human rights and ethics must guide any application of genome editing technologies, particularly heritable changes to the human germline.

 

Interestingly

 the scientific impetus for therapeutic cloning via SCNT has somewhat diminished due to parallel advancements. The 2006 discovery of **induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)** by Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka (work for which he later shared a Nobel Prize) revolutionized the field.

•  iPSCs are adult somatic cells reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state,
•  capable of differentiating into any cell type. This technology allows for the
•  creation of patient-specific pluripotent stem cells without the need for human
•  eggs or the creation and destruction of cloned embryos, thereby sidestepping
•  many of the ethical and practical hurdles associated with SCNT.

 

Inconclusion, while the specter of human reproductive cloning has loomed for nearly three decades, it remains largely confined to failures, fraudulent claims, and profound ethical prohibitions. Legitimate scientific efforts have focused on therapeutic applications, but even these have been substantially influenced and, in some respects, superseded by alternative technologies like iPSCs. 

The journey of human cloning attempts serves as a stark reminder of the complex interplay between scientific possibility, societal values, and the enduring sanctity of human life.