National Healthcare Group Annual Scientific Congress Dinner - The Asexual Reproduction of Humans

09 Oct 2004

By Dr Balaji Sadasivan, Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts and Health

Venue: Raffles City Convention Centre

Speech By Dr Balaji Sadasivan, Senior Minister Of State, Ministry Of Information, Communications And The Arts And Ministry Of Health At The National Healthcare Group Annual Scientific Congress Dinner On Saturday, 9 October 2004 At 7.45 P.M. At Raffles City Convention Centre

The Asexual Reproduction of Humans

Mr Michael Lim, Chairman of NHG

Dr Lim Suet Wen, CEO NHG

Dr Mahesh Choolani, Organising Committee Chairman

Ladies and Gentleman

Friends and Colleagues

Two months ago, the "Human Cloning and other Prohibited Practices Bill" was passed by parliament. The Bill was passed to ensure that recent advances in our knowledge about reproduction are not used in a manner that society finds ethically unacceptable. Knowledge carries with it both promises and perils and the role of governments are to allow its citizens to enjoy the benefits of science and protect them, wherever possible, from its perils.

In the 20th century, fundamental discoveries were made about the physical and chemical nature of matter which ushered in our modern electronic age. But this same knowledge also ushered in the nuclear age with enough nuclear weapons to completely annihilate the world several times over. In the life sciences, fundamental discoveries have been made that now makes the asexual reproduction of our human species a possibility. We have opened a Pandora's Box.

The Greeks were great thinkers and story tellers and gave us the story of Pandora. The story beings with an immortal, Prometheus, whose name means fore-thought, who is the benefactor of Man. Prometheus took pity on Man who was living like the beasts, utterly without any knowledge. He gave them fire and writing so that Man could learn and invent new things. This angered the Gods who decided to punish both Prometheus and Man.

Prometheus was bound to a rock in a distant land and an eagle feasted on his liver during the day. Each night, the wound healed so that he may suffer again the next day. To punish Man, the gods created a beautiful woman called Pandora. When Pandora was sent to live with men, she was given a sealed jar. The jar was a gift from the gods which contained the misfortunes and sorrows of existence. She was advised by Prometheus not to open the jar. Pandora's curiosity overcame her fear and she opened the jar, releasing sorrow, disease and conflict to mankind. After frequent repetition of this story, the jar became a box and Pandora's Box has become synonymous with the dangers of man's curiosity.

One of the great and curious questions man has always asked is "how does a child come to be?" We know it starts with sex and ends with a baby nine months later, but the steps in between have been a great mystery for a long time. A number of great scientists have helped unravel some aspects of this mystery and set us on the road to asexual reproduction.

I shall mention a few of the key discoveries. Hans Spemann, the Nobel prize winning embryologist did an elegant experiment in the 1920s. The embryo of the sea urchin is relatively large. He allowed it to divide into two cells. Using a fine hair pulled from the head of his son, he separated the two cells. Each developed into a complete sea-urchin. The experiment showed that the nucleus of each cell contained the full blue-print of an animal.

Watson and Crick in the 60's showed how this blueprint was recorded in the double helix structure of the DNA. Craig Ventor and others associated with the Genome project have decoded the human genome. It now cost several hundred thousand dollars to decode your personal genome and place it on a CD. It is just a matter of time before the cost of this comes down to several hundred dollars. Imagine, years from now, a genetically identical person can be created by copying your personal genomic code on the CD. There will be no need for actual tissue.

Twenty six years ago, Louise Brown - the first test-tube baby, was born. Since then, over a million IVF or test-tube babies have been born. Edwards and Steptoe who developed the technique, used laparoscopy to harvest eggs from a female, then fertilized the egg in the lab and implanted the embryo into the female. The success of this technique opened the possibility of manipulating embryoes in the test-tube and putting them back into the female. Because IVF technique allows manipulation of fertilisation and the developing embryo, there were considerable ethical and moral concerns about IVF. Edwards noted the hostility that he and Steptoe generated and that they were called everything bad under the sun - immoral, unethical, and dehumanizing." Even today, more than two decades after the first IVF baby, moral, ethical and legal issues concerning aspects linked to IVF like surrogacy and artificial insemination with donor sperm have not been resolved fully.

In 1996, Dolly the world famous sheep was born at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. Dr Ian Wilmut used the IVF technique to obtain an egg from a surrogate mother sheep. Instead of fertilizing the egg, the nucleus of the egg was removed and the nucleus from a mammary cell of a 6 year old adult sheep was transferred into the egg. The egg containing the transferred nucleus was returned to the surrogate sheep. The sheep born, Dolly, was a clone of the 6 year old donor of the nucleus. In other words, the 6 year old donor sheep had asexually reproduced itself, as Dolly was a genetic replica.

Because there were 277 attempts before Dolly was born, it appeared that asexual reproduction by the nuclear transfer technique was inefficient. There is progress being made to make the process more efficient. It appears that the timing of the nucleus transfer was an important factor for success. The transfer had to be timed to ensure that the nuclear and cytoplasmic changes leading to cell division were in sync.

Commercial possibilities are driving research in livestock cloning. At least two US companies, Infigen and Advanced Cell Technology have successfully cloned mammals. Infigen has introduced an asexually reproduced bull called Gene. By making genetic copies of so called superior bulls or other livestock, it hopes to sell genetically altered animals. In Oct 2000, Infigen auctioned a cloned cow for US$80,000.

Advanced Cell Technology is adding human genes to livestock so that the tissue from these transgenic animals will be compatible to humans. On January 8, 2001, scientists at Advanced Cell Technology announced the birth of the first clone of an endangered animal, a gaur- which is a rare wild ox from India. This was done by using a cow egg and a surrogate from a different species. The clone was named Noah.

Asexual reproduction of mammals is a reality today. Asexual reproduction of humans is now technically possible. Biologically, there is nothing inherently right or wrong with asexual or sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction involves the merging of two sets of DNA (one from the father's sperm and one from the mother's egg) to produce a new offspring that is genetically different from either parent. Sex is the means of bringing the DNA together. Asexual reproduction does not involve sex and there is only one parent. All the offspring produced by asexual reproduction are identical to one another and the parent. Asexual reproduction is common in the plants but rare in animals. In the asexual propagation of plants a twig is often used grow a new plant.

The Greek word for twig is clon and so in 1903, the US Dept of Agriculture designated plants that were asexually propagated as clones. The word cloning has now become synonymous with asexual reproduction. In a stable environment, asexual reproduction is efficient since it does away with the mechanics of sex. However in an unstable environment, where the species needs genetic diversity to survive, the mixing of genes from two parents confers an evolutionary advantage. Sex appears to increase the ability of a species to adapt to a changing environment by allowing new beneficial mutations to be passed on. So as a species, there is a sound biological basis to favour sexual reproduction. But this by itself is not a good reason to reject asexual reproduction.

The abhorrence that people have for human cloning is based on our human and moral values. In Judeo-Christian-Islamic belief, God created man in His Image. So the idea of Man tampering with new life is disconcerting.

Popular culture has magnified our fears. We imagine the horror of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. We imagine situations like that in the movie - Boys from Brazil where a new generation of Adolf Hitlers was cloned. We imagine Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, "One egg, one embryo, one adult - normality. One egg... to ninety-six buds and every bud... into a full sized adult. Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines. The principles of mass production at last to biology."

We fear the devaluation of human life. Some of us may be having chicken for dinner tonight. We will eat our chicken even if the chicken was not the result of the sexual union of a cock and a hen. We do not attribute a special and intrinsic value to the life of each chicken. We do not treat human life in the same manner. We see each human life as being special and individual and we believe that each individual human life has an intrinsic value. This value system is the basis of human society. Replicating humans undermines these values.

Sexual reproduction also forms the basis for the basic unit of human society - the family. It creates defined relationships. The child is a union of the genes of two parents. It is not a copy of either parent. This is a time tested framework for the family and cloning humans will undermine this framework.

Now that Parliament has passed the "Human Cloning and other Prohibited Practices Bill", it is illegal to attempt the cloning of humans in Singapore. But human cloning may occur elsewhere since there are still many countries in the world including the United States that have not prohibited human cloning. In the United States Federal funds cannot be used for research in this area but private, University and State funds can be used. The subject of human cloning is not going to go away. There are some individuals who have attracted much media attention by supporting human cloning.

There is Dr Richard Seed, a physicist who promises that cloning will put us at one with god. He has volunteered himself along with his wife's womb for this holy purpose.

Then, there is a journalist called Rael who started a religious cult. The cult has formed a company called Clonaid to advance cloning. Rael claims he has learnt cloning techniques from an alien spaceship that landed in Canada. Clonaid claims that it has used these techniques to clone a female called Eve. There were reports in our papers that Clonaid intended to clone Singaporeans.

Then, there is an Italian doctor called Dr Antinori who used IVF to make a 63 year old lady a mother. He wanted to clone an Englishman. It is an interesting thought - an Italian cloning an Englishman. Nevertheless, Dr Antinori proposed intentions in 2001 prompted the emergency Bill prohibiting cloning in the UK. Finally there is Dr Zavos who claims he has cloned new life from tissue taken from people who have died.

Besides the individuals who have captured the media's attention, there are also other groups of individuals who feel they have an ethical case to reproduce themselves asexually. One such group is infertile people. A lady who has lost her ovaries because of cancer or a man whose testicles cannot produce sperms will not be able to have a genetically related child. Current IVF techniques are based on sexual reproduction with fertilization of an egg by a sperm. Without an egg or a sperm, fertilization will not be possible. However nuclear transfer, that is, asexual reproduction will make it possible for these individuals to have a genetically related offspring. They argue that banning asexual reproduction deprives them of their right to reproduce.

Another group is the homosexuals. Lesbian couples in particular will see asexual reproduction as a way of having a genetically related offspring. One female would donate the nucleus and the other the egg with the cytoplasm which will include a small amount of cytoplasmic DNA. The resulting child will truly be a result of a same sex union between the two women. For gays, the problem is more complicated as a surrogate egg from a female is still needed and a woman is still needed to deliver the child. Nevertheless some gays also support asexual reproduction.

The cloning debate will continue and intensify and the next controversial chapter is waiting to be written. With our legislation in place, I am quite certain that the next chapter, if it is going to be a controversial one, will not be written in Singapore.

I would like to end by concluding the story of Prometheus and Pandora. Although it is story about the dangers of knowledge, it has a hopeful end. When Pandora had opened the jar and released the evils that plague man, there remained in the jar Hope. Hope gave Man resilience to overcome obstacles. And a mortal man journeyed to the distant land where Prometheus was bound. He slew the eagle and freed Prometheus.

In the past when new scientific knowledge appeared to threaten the core of our human value system, like Galileo's theory that the earth was the centre of the universe or Darwin's theory of evolution, society has shown resilience. Over time, it has taken the new knowledge in its stride and used it for the betterment of human society. I am fully optimistic that this will also be the case with our knowledge on how to reproduce asexually.