Human cloning is one of the most revolutionary and at the same time controversial topics in the world of genetic research. Cloning, or creating an organism with an exact genetic copy of that of an existing organism, not only causes myriad ethical concerns, but further brings forth an exuberant amount of genetic challenges and risks to safely and successfully accomplish such process. This complex issue was brought to light in the study “Bringing Back Baby Jason” by Jennifer Hayes-Klosteridis. In this case study, the McMaster family is forced to decide whether or not to clone their recently deceased Baby Jason, in their last hope to "bring him back" and also in their last chance to have biological children. To do this, scientists would need to perform somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), the most current and established practice for reproductive cloning in mammals. In SCNT, the nucleus of an unfertilized egg is removed and replaced by the nucleus of a somatic cell, such as Baby Jason's skin cell, on which an electric shock would stimulate mitotic cell divisions. If successful, the new baby would look like an exact genetic match to his brother Baby Jason. However, from physiological and psychological risks to enormous genetic and epigenetic challenges, there are numerous factors that the family and scientists must consider before undertaking the process of successfully cloning Baby Jason. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay A series of epigenetic barriers and the extremely low success rate in producing a viable embryo are just two of the many challenges of cloning Baby Jason. First, if human cloning were possible, the most likely method of approach would be through the SCNT technique, in an attempt to produce a blastocyst, an early-stage embryo. However, this process as a whole has an extremely low success rate, mainly due to epigenetic barriers. Epigenetics, the study of inherited differences in gene expression that do not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence, is the primary source of many of the risks involved in producing a viable clone. Since the donor nucleus would come from Baby Jason's skin cell, a differentiated cell, it would already contain pre-existing epigenetic tags. While these tags control genetic regulation and cellular performance, the new egg cell drastically attempts to erase them through a process that is often delayed and/or incomplete, thus resulting in a non-viable embryo. These challenges and the low success rate in producing a viable clone are best evident through data from the famous cloning of Dolly the sheep.1 According to the Roslin Institute, of the 277 eggs used via SCNT, 29 viable embryos were produced, only 3 were survived until birth and only one ewe made it to adulthood, Dolly.1 The relatively low success rate for producing a viable embryo due to its own epigenome poses enormous challenges to successfully cloning Baby Jason. Among other challenges, genomic imprinting would present numerous problems for the successful cloning of Baby Jason. Genomic imprinting is essentially the idea that whether or not a given gene is expressed in offspring ultimately depends on which parent, mother or father, the gene was inherited. In diploid organisms, imprinting ultimately results in the silencing of one of the two alleles. Since imprinted genes are "marked" (via methylation) during egg cell formation and.