Lesson - Stem Cells and Cloning

Lesson Objectives

Content Objective: Cloning can be done artificially and naturally in some plants and animals and the use of stem cells can be used in cloning and for treatment.

Language Objective: Describe the cloning an a embryo level, in differentiated cells and use use of stem cells in two disorders.

Syllabus Details:

Understandings

Animals can be cloned at the embryo stage by breaking up the embryo into more than one group of cells
Clones are groups of genetically identical organisms, derived from a single original parent cell
Many plants species and some animal species have natural methods of cloning
Methods have been developed for cloning adult animals using differentiated cells
Production of clones embryos produced by somatic-cell nuclear transfer
Specialized tissues can develop by cell differentiation in multicellular organisms.
The capacity of stem cells to divide and differentiate along different pathways is necessary in embryonic development and also makes stem cells suitable for therapeutic uses.
Differentiation involves the expression of some genes and not others in a cell’s genome.

Application and Skills

Application: Use of stem cells to treat Stargardt’s disease and one other named condition.
Application: Ethics of the therapeutic use of stem cells from specially created embryos, from the umbilical cord blood of a new-born baby and from an adult’s own tissues.
Application: Production of cloned embryos produced by somatic-cell nuclear transfer.