Finding supporters of human cloning

April 18, 2011 8:38 PM

I need help finding contact information of supporters of human cloning for my school project.

I have an english paper to write, and as part of the assignment my teacher is requiring that we do an email interview of someone credible in the area our topic is on. My topic happens to be human cloning, and I've been chosen to support it.

However, I'm having trouble finding emails of individuals who are credible and/or prominent in this particular subject, AND support human cloning. The few I've found were from years ago, and when I tried to send an email, I got an instant reply saying it had been rejected and the email address didn't exist. My Google-Fu has also failed me beyond this point.

Part of the assignment, including the email interview, is due Friday, and thus I turn to you, MeFi. I'm facing a deadline and I'll at least need Thursday to write my assignment, meaning I need to send out as many emails as I can to (hopefully) ensure I get at least one back. Please help me find email addresses of individuals (scientists, even politicians) who support human cloning.

And please, no debating over the actual subject (though some references supporting my stance might be helpful and lead me to an author), my topic and stance was assigned and cannot be changed.

Thank you guys.

posted by hotdiggitydog to Science & Nature (3 answers total)

Two places to start may be with Lee Silver at Princeton (biologist) and Larry Tribe at Harvard (constitutional law/legal ethics). Getting past the gatekeepers may be a challenge, but their pages offer multiple contact options. (Tribe can be quite prickly, just to let you know; I've never had any interaction with Silver.)

Tribe: http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=74

Silver: http://www.molbio.princeton.edu/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=237
posted by HonoriaGlossop at 9:02 PM on April 18, 2011

How narrow a definition of cloning do you have to work with? Do you have to assume that you're trying to clone whole organisms (reproductive cloning), or can you write about cloning human genes (recombinant DNA technology)?

If your instructor hasn't been adequately specific, take the tactic of supporting recombinant DNA technology (this is what 99.8% of anyone who does cloning in a lab means when they say cloning, so you'll win the technical argument about whether or not you fulfilled the assignment). You can email people at any number of biotech firms, drug companies, or universities who will be happy to talk to you about the ways in which recombinant technology has revolutionized medicine, and the way that cloning human genes has contributed to the research that brought those treatments to market.
posted by amelioration at 9:12 PM on April 18, 2011

Depending on how your prof defines prominent, you might try the people at Cloneaid. They were in the news for some time trying to promote the idea. The organization is affiliated with the Raelian movement here in montreal, who are pretty nutty... but Clonaid would have scientists working there... I think.
posted by ServSci at 9:23 PM on April 18, 2011