Ostap Kripky
Cloning is a method of breeding by means of adding genetic material of a cell to a nucleus-free mother cell, which results in a precise copy of the living organism as a result of the tests in genetic engineering which caused so much concern.
Recently a phytocenter was established with the national agricultural university. Young scientist Ostap Kripky chairs the center. Ostap graduated from the Biology Department of Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv two years ago and was carried away by genetic engineering. During this rather short time he has received a number of invitations to work in the scientific centers in Europe and America, but still he decided to live and work in Ukraine.
Everything is sterile in the laboratory, because clones of flowers and hops are very sensitive to viruses. Numerous clones are kept in special sterile tubes before Ostap plants them in the greenhouse, which is already full of cloned flowers.
The Day: "Can you obtain plants programmed to fight insects, for instance?"
"That is what Western institutes are trying to do. They are basically trying to make them less sensitive to herbicides and diseases. Genetic reconstruction is carried out by external influence upon genes."
"Would you be interested in cloning a man?"
"Yes, that would be interesting, but it is another area. I think human cloning is impossible until they split genes. Hence the talk about human doubles is a little bit premature and looks more like a commercial trick," says Ostap. A Ph.D. in biology, Professor Dmytro Melnychuk thinks that cloning is extremely important for transplanting human internal organs.
Kripky is working on creating technologies for industrial cloning of valuable sorts of wood. Poplar and fir are his main objects today. According to Kripky, if nothing goes wrong, in a year he will be able to clone an oak tree. From the economic point of view, this could bring huge profits, because the time cuts down to a few months.
Kripky looked admiringly at the flowers in the vase and said, "Here comes the clone, which can bring huge profit. When the cloning technology is mastered, the amount of cloned flowers in the market will go stratospheric and their price will be low. Many huge flower companies, like Kvity Ukrainy already have their cloning laboratories, but all materials are smuggled into the country. They are all registered abroad and can be easily detected by experts. Clone licensing is a very serious problem and by the time they start paying attention to it Ukraine will lose its place in the world's flower market."
"One American laboratory managed to receive a transgenic potato type that bugs refuse to eat. Is there anything like these transgenic tomatoes?"
Kripky explained that we have been eating transgenic vegetables for a long time. In the West they clone even rice. Transgenic vegetables are cheaper than regular ones and can be stored for three months. And there is nothing to be afraid of. The only difference is that this tomato has been grown using a more progressive method.
"Could such experiments not lead to an ecological catastrophe?"
"I don’t think so. Nature has many factors you cannot control."
Photo by Valery Soloviov:
Clones begin their lives in test tubes








