Therapeutic cloning

The main thing you should know about therapeutic cloning is that it is totally different from the reproductive cloning. Therapeutic cloning is not meant to produce a complete human being as reproductive cloning does. Therefore, no sperm and egg fertilization available in therapeutic cloning process.
Therapeutic cloning is also known as SCNT (Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer).

This is how SCNT applied :
1. the nucleus which contains human's genetic materials is extracted from an egg.
2. a somatic (body) cell is derived from the patient's body.
3. scientists also extract the nucleus from the derived somatic cell.
4. the somatic cell's nucleus is injected into the egg which nucleus has been removed before.
5. the specialized egg now divides itself and later forms a group of blastocyst cells.
6. a blastocyst cell consists of outer layer and inner layer. The inner layer blastocyst contains a lot of stem cells.
7. the stem cells are derived from the blastocyst to create embryonic stem cells.
8. the embryonic stem cells are injected back into the patient's body.

See? No copied human resulted. Indeed the 'cloning' is just a tag, the actual name is SCNT (Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer). How can the scientists guarantee that no chance of human created in SCNT? It is because the derived / extracted nucleus is the pluripotent cells. There are two kinds of cells in the embryo, the totipotent cells and pluripotent cells. Totipotent cells have the potential to develop into a whole complete human being, while pluripotent cells can develop into any cells but the ones needed in developing a human being. In other words, the pluripotent cells are especially for body cells replacement only.

The Benefits and Risks of Therapeutic Cloning

These are the benefits of Therapeutic Cloning :
1. The pluripotent embryonic stem cells can be specialized into 220 types of body cells. Therefore they have a wide potential to replace any damaged cells and tissues in human body.
2. Because the somatic cells are taken from the patient himself, then his body immune system will not consider the transplanted stem cells as enemies and later attack them.
3. Reduce or avoid the possibility of body rejection because the transplanted stem cells own the genetic materials of the patient.
4. Help to revive the organs of patients who are in waiting list for organ transplant. Therefore they do not need to wait any longer, for their organs can be healed now. The fact is that there are only limited organs provided or available for them, and sometimes they die before the organs arrive.
5. Help the scientists to have better understanding about stem cells, and therefore increase the chance of having better drugs and medication in the future.

However, there are some risks in therapeutic cloning :

1. After the original egg's nucleus is removed from the egg, the egg is mostly in poor condition. That's why when the patient's somatic nucleus is injected into the egg, it mostly fails to blend well. Therefore, the scientists must try many times before it finally successful.
2. When the stem cells are derived from the blastocyst, it mostly damages and kills the embryo. This is also a moral problem.
3. The advance knowledge of cloning may seduce the scientists to perform reproductive cloning (the copy of a whole human being).