Clone: The Road to Dolly, and the Path Ahead

Natural History, Sept, 1998 by Michael Yudell

CLONE: THE ROAD TO DOLLY, AND THE PATH AHEAD, by Gina Kolata. William Morrow, $23; 276 pp.

Review Working in a lab in the hills of Scotland, two scientists clone a lamb they name Dolly (after Dolly Parton) from a mammary cell of an adult sheep. Anyone who spent the past year or so in a state of suspended animation might insist that this story is the work of a clever, if not funny, science fiction writer. But Dolly is real, and cloning seems to be upon us. Our doppelgangers may soon be among us, forcing us to reconsider the hows and whys of life, reproduction, and the boundaries of scientific research.

As the twentieth century draws to a close, breakthroughs in reproductive genetics, of which cloning is only one example, may give scientists the power to alter our evolutionary future in ways once only dreamed of by futurists and snake oil salesmen. Two books, one by Princeton biologist Lee Silver and the other by New York Times science writer Gina Kolata, set forth to make some sense of this brave new future. Why is Dolly such a big deal when for several years scientists have been able to clone other animals--and thereby create identical twins--from embryo cells? As both Kolata and Silver tell us, never before were scientists successful in cloning from a mature, differentiated adult cell. This means, in theory, that a flake of your skin, a snippet of your hair, or a sample of your blood could be used to create your identical twin.

Clone: The Road to Dolly, and the Path Ahead is adapted from Kolata's news stories--Kolata is the reporter who broke the Dolly story. She nimbly traces the developments that led to the now infamous cloning of a sheep by Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell at the Roslin Institute outside of Edinburgh. Not only does Kolata give the reader a detailed overview of the research leading to the birth of "the most famous lamb in history," but she also gives an accurate rendering of the often tedious life of a laboratory scientist, the process of scientific discovery, and the Spice Girls-like fame now heaped upon once humble laboratory scientists.

The road to Dolly, Kolata argues, was littered with a series of "speed-bumps" that significantly slowed down the pace of cloning research and altered its nature, moving it from the hallowed halls of academia to the frowned-upon, corporate-sponsored labs of agricultural science. Take, for example, the 1978 publication of In His Image: The Cloning of a Man, by David Rorvick. The book tells a fantastic tale of Rorvick's allegedly successful role in helping an eccentric millionaire to clone himself. Although eventually deemed a hoax, the book caused such an uproar that it prompted outraged editorials, lawsuits, and even Congressional hearings. Kolata points out that the book succeeded in making a mockery of cloning research.

Adding to this fiasco was the claim made in 1981 by the highly respected German researcher Karl Illmensee that he had successfully cloned a mammal--three mice from embryo cells. The results were never replicated, and the work was discredited. Kolata argues that these events--together with an emerging bioethics movement trying to shake some of the traditional illusions of a "science above morality," and a public increasingly wary of science--pushed cloning research out of the mainstream.

While Clone takes the reader down the road that led to Dolly, Lee Silver's Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World is an overview of where reproductive technologies might take us in the future. The book opens with a series of scenarios that posit a future filled with cloning, genetic engineering, and even the speciation of the American population, by the year 2350, into those who are genetically enhanced (Gene-enriched or GenRich) and those who are not (Naturals, consigned by class to their nonengineered fates). These scenarios are intended to make us consider the possibilities--or perhaps the inevitabilities--of such technologies.

Remaking Eden takes the reader on a fascinating tour of new techniques in human reproductive biology--from the now familiar artificial insemination process to the well known and not yet practiced eugenic embryo selection and genetic engineering. The descriptions are instructive, but the author sometimes embraces these technologies with such fervor that the reader is left wondering whether Silver is already planning his life in a brave new world. If Aldous Huxley's classic novel taught us anything, it was that the unfettered use of scientific technologies can present a danger to human freedom and dignity. Huxley once said: "Science in itself is morally neutral; it becomes good or evil according as it is applied." We must take care, particularly in this biologically deterministic age, not to embrace this power without considering where it might lead us. The two books under review offer excellent introductions to these issues.

Michael Yudell is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is also a graduate student in the Molecular Systematics Laboratory at the American Museum of Natural History.