Vulcan-Human reproduction

[putaro]

This started from a comment on Panyasan' latest World of Ice chapter, Rokel (which overall is quite good, this was just a nit). I thought I'd move it into the forums and let everyone have a chance to chime in.

Hmmm...Terra Prime managed to bring a Vulcan-Human hybrid to term, so what did they do that everyone else doesn't understand?  i should think that fixing the built-in genetic problems wouldn't make it impossible to gestate another Vulcan-Human hybrid.
Trip as a Human "captured" by Romulans to infiltrate them makes a lot more sense than Trip disguised as a Romulan.

Thanks Putaro for your review(s). The organization Terra Prime cloned the DNA of Trip and T'Pol and created a baby. However, the baby got ill and died. Phlox says that it was genetic, her Vulcan and human DNA weren't compatible. So even if you used cloning as a method for a baby, you still have to find a way to cure the genetic problems. Also - as much as TnT loved their cloned daughter - if you have to choose between a cloned child or a child born from the combination of your genes and more of less the normal way, what will you choose? Glad you liked the bit about Trip's motivation for his mission and his capture by the Romulans and thank you for reading all three chapters and reviewing them. :D

I see what you're trying to say about the cloning, but here's my understanding of the various processes (ignoring outright nonsense like Lyssarian Desert Larvae - the child woulld only live for two weeks anyhow).  To produce a child, you need to combine the genetic material of the parents in some way.  One way is through the traditional egg+sperm being combined.  Egg and sperm cells are haploid cells - they only carry 23 (half) of your chromosomes, randomly chosen.  The fertilization process combines the two to create the full 46 chromosomes a Human has (other species can have different numbers of chromosomes).  Whether the fertilization occurs "naturally" or in a petri dish, the process is the same and results in a single cell which will divide and divide and differentiate to grow into a Human being.  That cell needs an environment to do that in which currently has to be a mother's womb.
A regular clone is a copy of the parent.  The way this has been done today with animals (so there's no reason to believe it wouldn't work for humans) is they start with an egg, remove the half of the chromosomes that are in the egg already and then put the full set of DNA from the parent into the egg.  There's a little kick that makes the egg believes it has been fertilized and it is now that single cell we all start from.  Theoretically, it should be possilble to take an adult cell and convince it that it's a just-fertilized egg, but we don't know how to do that yet.  Again, the cell needs an environment (a womb) to grow in until the creature is self-sufficient.
In Demons, T'Pol referred to Elizabteh as being a "binary clone". A binary clone would start with DNA from the two parents.  Rather than starting with sperm and egg cells though (which have already split the chromosomes) you would start with regular cells, remove the DNA and then pick the chromosomes from the parents and combine them.  The end result would be a full set of DNA, which you'd then put into an egg to create that initial cell.  Again, it needs a womb to be gestated in.
A binary clone would only differ from a naturally produced child in terms of how the genes were selected.  It would still contain DNA from both parents and thus be "their" child.  It would also need a womb or womb substitute to be gestated in.  For Trip and T'Pol to have a child, I believe they would need significant genetic engineering to pick and choose traits and combine them together into a compatible whole (we'll assume that Human and Vulcan DNA are similar enough for this to be possible at all).
That's my understanding of all this - I could be wrong but I think I'm at least pretty close to right.
So, my point was, that since Terra Prime was able to gestate a child from a single cell (as any of the methods require, including cloning), they must have gotten over the hurdle that T'Pol had of her body rejecting the child.  Either they had a way to suppress the rejection in the mother, or a Human host mother could carry a Vulcan-Human hybrid to term or they had some kind of artificial womb technology like you described.

Putaro, there is a huge difference between cloning and the method of getting a egg and sperm together (the methode Trip and T'Pol have chosen). Cloning is a exact copy of your DNA, in the case of a binary clone a copy of two persons DNA. With putting the egg and sperm together, an unique person can come to live, because the combination are limitless. That is why two childern of the same parents can be so different. Two binary clones wouldn't. Also a clone is more a copy and that makes the genetic make up much weaker. Diversity in the genes makes the genetic material stronger. What ever method used, you're right that the organization Terra Prime probably used a kind of artifical womb. The facility that is developing this advanced artifical womb would have probably used the same knowlegde and technologies Terra Prime has, but also improved it.

Panyasan, I am sorry, but there is not any difference between the two processes, at least as far as the end result goes.

Cloning typically only refers to an organism created with the same DNA as the parent. "Binary clone" is, as far as I can tell, a term that the Enterprise writers made up for the episode (try Googling it - the only hits you'll get are Memory Alpha) to describe a genetically engineered combination of two donors' DNA. It's not possible to be an identical copy of two people - think about what you're saying. You could be an identical copy of one or the other or you can be combination of the two. That's what the binary clone concept is supposed to be. Genetic engineering of people has been on the horizon for a while. If you were to take the DNA from two Human donors and then pick and choose genes to combine them, the only difference between that and a naturally produced child would be how the genes were selected. In a natural mating, the gene selection is pretty much random, while in a genetically engineered organism the genes would be deliberately picked.

However, you can get a unique combination by a random method or by a deliberate method. This little comment was written deliberately but it is probably unique. Siblings produced by this "binary clone" process could be as identical or as unique as the genetic engineers wanted them to be.

There's nothing inherent in cloning that would make an individual less healthy. It will be, genetically speaking, as healthy or unhealthy as the original - identical twins are, essentially, natural clones because they come from one egg that split into two. Are identical twins less healthy than non-identical siblings? We each consist of trillions of cells, all descended from one single fertilized egg cell, with that original DNA in the egg copied those trillions of times. Telomeres, on the end of the DNA chains in Humans, get shorter as the DNA is copied naturally and are believed to be linked to aging. Somewhere in the egg/sperm production/combination the telomeres get reset, but it's not magic and as part of the cloning/genetic recombination process, telomeres could theoretically be reset as well.

When you look at a race as a group, genetic diversity is, of course, important.

[Kotik]

Oh, goody - a controversy *rubs hands*

Technically, what Terra Prime did wasn't cloning at all. The whole 'binary clone' thing is just a misleading term. What they allegedly did was extracting genetic material from the stolen tissue sample and genetically engineered the child's genetic code from the parents - basically that's exactly what happens during normal conception. The spermium bashes the door of the egg cell in and the genomes of the parents combine to form a new one.
In the TP lab the combined genetic code was implanted into a stem cell and the was then either implanted into a woman to carry it to term or gestated in some sort of artificial womb.

So basically Terra Prime's method was more or less equal to natural conception. We've discussed it before - the genomes of Humans and Vulcans cannot be that wildly different, in fact the genomes of most humanoids should be rather similar, since we see hybrids as an everyday occurrence in later Startrek Timelines and genetic engineering was not mentioned as something widely used in that time. I would guess that conception itself might be possible, but for a viable fetus to deliver it might take minor post-conception adjustments that were minor enough not to be mentioned in later times. They might be still something newfangled in ENT's timeline though.

[panyasan]

So basically what the organization Terra Prime did wasn't cloning, but combining two sort of DNA's - like you would in a normal production.
I wonder why they came up with the term binary clone, maybe because Terra Prime didn't see the daughter of Trip and T'Pol as a real Vulcan-Human-being, but only a travesty in their own eyes.

I don't have a medical background, but I don't think cloning a persons DNA and using the the natural method of combining two sort of DNA's will have the same result.

1. A copy is always weaker as the original and gets more weaker with every copy.

2. As for the health aspect: you need genetic diversity to create stronger genetic material. In the past the royals of Europe (the kings, queens, princes, princesses) all came from the same families. They were all related in one way of another. This kind of breeding in a small circle led to serious health problems (mostly mental problems). Also about 200 years ago you had small isolated fishermen places in my country where interbreeding was common. This resulted in people who weren't very intelligent. (I am not making this up). IMHO, with cloning you don't have this diversity you want.

With all this genetic engineering, including cloning, you have to think about the consequences. If you don't select your genes random like in the natural method, but pick them in a some kind of method, the question remains which genes will you pick? Do you want to pick genes? Only take the good one and leave the "bad"' ones out? Who decides what kind of genes are good or bad? There is no easy answer. My husband has two genetic illnesses, yet he is worth living and we have taken the chance to have children of our own. Maybe you remember Bashir of Star Trek Voyager. He discovered that his parents had him born with the use of genetic engineering. His parents had made him a super-human. He didn't like it. He hated that thought at first, but he found a way to deal with it.
With all that science and new developments it comes also with the responsibility to use them wisely.

Just some thoughts.

[putaro]

1. A copy is always weaker as the original and gets more weaker with every copy.

That's true with Xerox machines and other forms of analog copying (tape recorders) but not really true with digital copying. DNA replication is basically a digital copy and the error rate is quite low. You're made up of trillions (I looked it up - I was thinking billions off the top of my head) of cells, all of which have copies of the DNA from the original cell you started with. Making a copy of one of those cells and then recopying it trillions of times isn't that big a deal. And, if you have the technology to clean up any bad mutations in the original you'd actually have a better copy than the original (though you might not be able to call it a clone anymore because it's not identical).

2. As for the health aspect: you need genetic diversity to create stronger genetic material. In the past the royals of Europe (the kings, queens, princes, princesses) all came from the same families. They were all related in one way of another. This kind of breeding in a small circle led to serious health problems (mostly mental problems). Also about 200 years ago you had small isolated fishermen places in my country where interbreeding was common. This resulted in people who weren't very intelligent. (I am not making this up). IMHO, with cloning you don't have this diversity you want.

You are correct, but a few clones here and there won't cause a problem. If everyone is a clone, you've basically got a mono-culture and if a disease comes along for which there's no immunity and no medical cure, everyone is dead. However, if all your reproduction is by cloning, there's no in-breeding taking place.

With all this genetic engineering, including cloning, you have to think about the consequences. If you don't select your genes random like in the natural method, but pick them in a some kind of method, the question remains which genes will you pick? Do you want to pick genes? Only take the good one and leave the "bad"' ones out? Who decides what kind of genes are good or bad? There is no easy answer. My husband has two genetic illnesses, yet he is worth living and we have taken the chance to have children of our own. Maybe you remember Bashir of Star Trek Voyager. He discovered that his parents had him born with the use of genetic engineering. His parents had made him a super-human. He didn't like it. He hated that thought at first, but he found a way to deal with it.
With all that science and new developments it comes also with the responsibility to use them wisely.

These are critical questions. For example, for a long time tonsils were considered non-useful and surgeons were removing them left and right. Turns out they're actually a useful part of the immune system. If they had been genetically engineered out of humans, that could turn out to be a big mistake (though, you could just engineer them back in).

[panyasan]

Beaten by technology! So cloning would not lead to decline in genetic material. Very interesting. I am not totally convinced. Every living cell has his rate of decline, including brain cells, sperm cells and eggs - so cloning original DNA would lead to some decline as well, I would think.

As for cloning as method for having a child:
Putting aside combining two sets of DNA artificially like Terra Prime did (which is basically a scientific way of creating a child the old fashioned way), I can't imagine people wanting to have a child by cloning.
Why does any one want to have a clone from for example her husband and then treat it as her child? The method is far less fun and the most important reason: it isn't your child, it's a copy of your husband. That's a huge difference. My son looks a lot like my husband, but also like me and he is totally him-person and that's the great part about it.
Frankly, having a copy of my husband running around as a kid, growing up etc and to have him treat as my child, that would freak me out.

[Distracted]

A clone is basically the identical twin of its donor, so you'd basically just be adopting and raising your husband's younger brother. If I had a potentially fatal or debilitating autosomal dominant genetic illness that made it ethically questionable for me to reproduce, I might consider that in lieu of adopting some stranger's child. At least I'd be able to give my husband a son that was genetically his without getting a third party involved.

[Kotik]

And your part in that would be what? Sounds like zilch to me. You wouldn't give him a son of his own genetic makeup, you'd be giving him a copy of himself. Imagine Trip raising Sim. That's utterly creepy

[Distracted]

What's creepy about it? It's a baby who happens to be my husband's identical twin. The child would grow up in a completely different environment, at a different time, and with different parents. He would have his own unique personality, and despite the ridiculousness that is Similitude, would of course have none of my husband's memories. He'd just look a heck of a lot more like his adoptive daddy than the average kid. The situation might make Christmas dinners with the inlaws a little odd, though, since if I bore the child I'd technically be serving as surrogate for my mother-in-law and adopting her youngest "child". That's kinda weird, I guess.

[putaro]

Cloning in science fiction tends to have the following reasons:

1) Evil government wants to make lots of super soldiers (Attack of the Clones)

2) Narcissism (see John Varley's Lollipop and the Tar Baby for a freaky treatment of this)

3) Spare parts (The Island)

[panyasan]

A clone is basically the identical twin of its donor, so you'd basically just be adopting and raising your husband's younger brother. If I had a potentially fatal or debilitating autosomal dominant genetic illness that made it ethically questionable for me to reproduce, I might consider that in lieu of adopting some stranger's child. At least I'd be able to give my husband a son that was genetically his without getting a third party involved.

In the documentation I have seen about cloning and the news reports about the cloned sheep Dolly cloning was seen as a copy of the original, not a twin. I remember one woman telling in the documentation that she wanted a copy of her husband, not a child, because her husband was perfect. Friends of mine are identical twins, but have two very different personalities. I wouldn't mind raising my nephew, but I would mind cloning.

If you are okay with cloning and genetic manipulation and that sort of thing - you can express that opinion. Just as I have a right to express my opinion that cloning makes me very, very uncomfortable.

[Kotik]

I can understand both sides to a degree. On one hand Dis proposes to use cloning to allow parents with a genetic defect to produce offspring, but I also agree with panyasan, it's simply not the way to go. First of all, genetic information DOES degrade with every cloning process. Dolly pretty much proved that point.
What will be useful however - and Arik Soong said as much in the Augment trilogy - genetic engineering will help to eradicate genetic defects. So instead of cloning the 'non-defect' partner, both would ride the ol' hobby-horse the natural way and any defect would then be 'corrected' by genetic engineering means. That comes with its own pandora's box though. Of course, once we have the means to manipulate genetic information, the temptation would be there to do some 'tuning'.

[Distracted]

Unfortunately, "riding the hobby horse" would not be a factor in reproduction here. Once internal conception has occurred the zygote would be impossible to find. We're talking a microscopic cell here, floating around in subjective miles of folded up Fallopian tube mucosa. There would be no way to access the zygote to tweak it. Nope, the only way to do something like this would be to combine genetic material in the lab. Whether you start from egg and sperm or from a donor egg with its DNA removed, you've got to be able to find the darn thing to do anything with it. Once the blastocyst has developed from the zygote, then you'd try implanting it. Having the implantation stick is a whole other problem, now. Even if we had the tools to manipulate individual genes (we really don't yet, the process is more like sucking up this DNA pudding and squirting it en masse into the receiving cell with a microscopic pipette), we're still left with the pressing question of how in the heck could a living organism with a hematopoietic system based on iron and another one with a hematopoietic system based on copper possibly be genetically compatible enough to produce a child. Humans and chimps share 98% of their DNA and don't have that problem and it's still (thankfully) impossible to interbreed between the two. Horses and donkeys share more like 99.9% of DNA and their offspring can't reproduce. This whole discussion is fascinating, but humans and Vulcans would not be able to conceive the old fashioned way. It would be impossible.

[putaro]

One of the things to remember about Star Trek is that it is OLD. TOS started in 1966. DNA wasn't really a thing until the late 1950's.

Science fiction had this tradition of people with different color skins (e.g. Red Martians) that regular Humans could interbreed with. Which, given our history of sailing around the world and finding people who look radically different (skin color, hair, to some extent facial features) but being able to interbreed with them, wasn't that far-fetched.

Vulcans were clearly a case of being "Green Humans" in TOS. The idea that Humans and Vulcans could interbreed wasn't that farfetched in a world pre-DNA, pre-genetic engineering.

As Dis pointed out, finding compatible organs, etc. between two wildly different species would be challenging to say the least. According to Star Trek canon, the Vulcan liver is pretty radically different from the Human liver and that's kind of key for everything.

On the other hand, what do people really care about when they say that a kid is "theirs"? Mostly hair color, facial features, pointy ears. Humans and Vulcans look a lot alike, so you should be able to find genes that you could tweak to match the parents. Spock always seemed to be 99% Vulcan. Maybe his Human half was really only cosmetic?

[panyasan]

According to ST science fiction we have Lorian - a Vulcan-Human hybrid and Spock. Now there is a scene in TOS where you see that Spock is born out of his Human mother while his Vulcan father is watching. So whatever method was used to get Spock into the womb (artificial conception or just the old fashioned way), he was born the normal way. In other TOS episodes it is strongly suggested that Spock's conception was done in the old fashioned way.

Now it's also interesting that we see difference in how certain scientific discoveries are treated in Star Trek itself. For example during the time of ST ENT it seemed that cloning wasn't illegal, but in DS9 it is stated that in Federation space cloning is illegal.

Setting aside ST science, today there are also a lot of different developments in science and different views about them. Yesterday I read a article about "womb-transport" - two women without wombs got a donor-womb from other woman. I have read stuff from a professor in medicine that because of the latest science developments having a child born from a Human-Vulcan the old fashioned way is possible and here is this thread it is argued by some one with a medical background it isn't. So we have very different point of views, opinions, possibilities, which all can lead to interesting stories.