Cloning vs. gene therapy -- X-Philes World-The Old Episodes

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Date Posted: 01:43:22 07/16/00 Sun
Author: Mat
Subject: Cloning vs. gene therapy
In reply to: detoured 's message, "Mat you're making my head spin!" on 13:50:38 07/14/00 Fri

First of all, ITA with what you said about just stumbling on a solution. I think that may very well have happened it this case.

Let me explain what I meant in my reply to CW. I'm not a biologist, so maybe I've got it all wrong, but here's what I thought.

The clones we've encountered in TXF were alien/human hybrids. They were created from alien cells, but human DNA was added to make them look more human. So strictly speaking they weren't clones (exact copies of the original), but the process of creating them must have been similar to that of making real clones.

Cloning, as you probably know, is already possible, though not on something as complex as a human being. Genetically altering a cell is also possible, and has been done to plants as well as animals. For example to cows, to produce substances in their milk that can be made into medicine. This makes creating an alien/human hybrid seem only one step away. (In reality it isn't, of course, but in the XF universe we have a little help from the aliens, so who knows?). The point here is that you start out with a single cell taken from an alien to which you add human DNA. You only have to alter one cell. If we can do that to cows, it's conceivable the aliens can do it to themselves. Furthermore, if we can clone sheep, why wouldn't the aliens be able to clone themselves?

Cassandra, however, is an adult human being. She consists of an immense number of cells, all of which have to be altered. Here, the (additional) problem is how to get the new genes into every single cell in the body. It seems to me that the process for hybridizing an entire organism must be somewhat similar to 'gene therapy' (the process of substituting working genes for defective, inherited genes). Gene therapy is also done on adult human beings (and children). As far as I know gene therapy has not been very succesful (yet) - for a number of reasons, but I think the problem mentioned above was one of them.

The hybridization program was started to enable the syndicate to save their loved ones, as I understood it, and probably the rest of mankind too. So, making alien human hybrids by cloning wasn't good enough. Genetically, those clones would be identical to your wife, husband, daugther, son, or whatever, but they wouldn't *be* that person. So, for 25 years, scientists looked for a way to really save to ones they loved from the alien virus. Cassandra was the first human being to be altered completely and succesfully, and therefore she was 'The One'.

OK, this may be a bit of a wild theory, and maybe completely wrong, but I just like to try to make sense of everything, find some explanation that satisfies me. It would be interesting to know the what a real biologist/geneticist would think of the 'genetics' part of the mythology. (Umm, does all this make me a nerd? It does fit the definition, doesn't it? :o( Maybe I should go outside and do some un-nerd like things now...)

Mat B-)

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I think I got it...sort of... -- detoured, 02:26:38 07/18/00 Tue