Re: Human Cloning: The Trade-In Strategy
Hal Finney (hal@rain.org)
Wed, 26 Feb 1997 12:30:51 -0800
From: Damien Broderick <damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
> I'm responding to this thread half a day late, as always, being on the wrong
> side of the planet. So ten other people have probably made the same point
> already. But I had to add: not to mention telomere degradation in adult
> cells. Presumably poor little Dolly is some years closer to the Hayflick
> limit than her woolly playmates, and will keel over earlier.
I wondered about this too, but I haven't seen any details. A great deal
of reproduction is necessary during growth, since you are starting with
a tiny little egg and ending up with a great big animal. I would have
thought that the Hayflick limit, if it is a factor here, would have
interfered with the development process. I wonder if the details of
the procedure involve somehow resetting the telomeres or providing new
ones, so that the donor DNA can make a fresh start.
Hal