2012 National DNA Day Online Chatroom Transcript

This is just one question from an archive of the National DNA Day Moderated Chat held in April 2012. The NHGRI Director and many genomics experts from across NHGRI took questions from students, teachers and the general public on topics ranging from basic genomic research, to the genetic basis of disease, to ethical questions about genetic privacy.

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Why is it so technically difficult to clone a human?
     Patricia Devers: I am a reproductive genetic counselor with over twelve years of experience in this field. My focus is clinical, particularly working with families who are pregnant or contemplating pregnancy who have an increased risk or a known birth defect or genetic condition in their pregnancy. There are many steps in the cloning process that need to work in order for cloning to work. There is a very high failure rate in animal cloning. It only works less than 10% of the time. It might not work because the egg and new nucleus are not compatible, because the embryo does not divide, because the embryo does not implant, or because the pregnancy does not continue. Even if the pregnancy continues, there is a risk for the offspring to be born with birth defects or "large offspring syndrome." Even if a healthy offspring is born, the gene expression pattern would probably be different than the original human. So although they may be genetically identical, they would not be totally identical in every way.
Loke Li Voon (student)

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