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根据下面资料,回答题 Gene therapy and gene based drugs are two ways we could benefit from our growing mastery of genetic science.But there will be others as well. Here is one of the remarkable therapies on the cutting edge of genetic research thatcould make their way into mainstream medicine in the coming years.
While it's true that just about every cell in the body has the instructions to make a complete human, most ofthose instructions are inactivated, and with good reason: the last thing you want for your brain cells is to start chur-ning out stomach acid or your nose to turn into a kidney. The only time cells truly have the potential to turn into anyand all body parts is very early in a pregnancy, when so-called stem cells haven' t begun to specialize.
Yet this untapped potential could be a terrific boon to medicine. Most diseases involve the death of healthycells--brain cells in Alzheimer' s, cardiac cells in heart disease, pancreatic cells in diabetes, to name a few ; if doc-tors could isolate stem cells, then direct their growth, they might be able to furnish patients with healthy replacementtissue.
It was incredibly difficult, but last fall scientists at the University of Wisconsin managed to isolate stem cellsand get them to grow into neural, gut, muscle and bone cells. The process still can' t be controlled, and may haveunforeseen limitations; but if efforts to understand and master stem cell development prove successful, doctors willhave a therapeutic tool of incredible power.
The same applies to cloning, which is really just the other side of the coin. True cloning, as first shown withthe sheep Dolly two years ago, involves taking a developed cell and reactivating the genome within, resetting its developmental instructions to a pristine state. Once that happens, the rejuvenated cell can develop into a full-fledgedanimal, genetically identical to its parent.
For agriculture, in which purely physical characteristics like milk production in a cow or low fat in a hog havereal market value, biological carbon copies could become routine within a few years. This past year scientists havedone for mice and cows what Ian Wilmut did for Dolly, and other creatures are bound to join the cloned menageriein the coming year.
Human cloning, on the other hand, may be technically feasible but legally and emotionally more difficult.Still, one day it will happen. The ability to reset body cells to a pristine, undeveloped state could give doctors exact-ly the same advantages they would get from stem cells: the potential to make healthy body tissues of all sorts, andthus to cure disease. That could prove to be a true "miracle cure".
The writer holds that the potential to make healthy body tissues will _______. A.aggravate moral issues of human cloning
B.bring great benefits to human beings
C.help scientists decode body instructions
D.involve employing surgical instruments
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