This technique would be particularly valuable for research. The use of genetically identical animals could dramatically reduce the numbers of animals needed for experiments. For the first time, researchers could be sure that differences in responses to drugs and other interventions are due to the interventions, not to genetic differences among animals. Cloning could also contribute to animal husbandry and medical research by facilitating transgenic technology. A transgenic animal is one that is genetically altered by inserting a new gene with the desired attributes into the DNA of a fertilized egg.
Transgenic animals are valuable for a number of reasons.
They can be engineered to have decreased susceptibility to bacterial infection, to have increased milk production, and to produce pharmaceutically important proteins in their milk. Recently, calves were cloned with the gene that enabled them to produce human clotting factors in their milk for the treatment of hemophilia. Cloning the animal that incorporated the gene of interest would be much faster than selective breeding and would decrease the amount of time required to produce transgenic animals. Future advances may also allow the development of animal clones with tissues and organs that are compatible for human transplantation purposes. The Administration believes that using somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning techniques to create a human being is untested, unsafe, and morally unacceptable.