Question: is there such a thing as cloning people?

Clara Nellist answered on 20 Mar 2014:

Hi @candyfloss909.

We do have the technology to clone people. This is because it is the same method as the one used for cloning animals. However, this method is still a complicated procedure (and not one with 100% success rate) and sometimes the cloned animals have problems with them when they are born. Also, scientists are not sure if a human baby would survive the whole nine months in the womb (since it has never been tried). We can’t accept this kind of risk for humans, not to mention the ethical implications of copying people, so at the moment, it is forbidden to clone humans.

There is another method of human cloning called “therapeutic cloning”. This is a process where the nucleus of a cell from a patient (the bit with the DNA in it) could be taken and put into an empty egg cell from a human woman. The cell is then allowed to begin dividing and replicating until there are about 100 cells. These could then be used for stem cell therapy to make new cells or maybe even organs! This would almost eliminate the chance of a patient rejecting the donation because it would have been made from their own DNA. In the UK this kind of research is currently legal, but in the USA it is not.