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Embryo Clones Sprout Controversy

Posted on: Thursday, 17 January 2008, 00:10 CST

Embryos that are clones of two men have recently been produced. Experts seem fairly unimpressed; although this is the first acknowledged demonstration that an adult’s cells can be used to make cloned embryos at a maturity level to produce stem cells, a human cloned embryo has been previously made.

Doug Melton of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute said of this accomplishment, “I found it difficult to determine what was substantially new [with this accomplishment]. [The] next big advance will be to create a human embryonic stem cell line [from cloned embryos].”

Despite Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk’s claims that he had created such cell lines, this has yet to happen . Dr. Samuel Wood, chief executive of Stemagen Corporation of La Jolla, California and his colleagues are currently attempting this feat.

Concerns have been raised about this type of stem cell research. Scientists say stem cells from cloned embryos could be very valuable research tools. They could help screen drugs, create transplant material and study diseases. Some critics believe that this is morally unacceptable. They claim that a human is being created in a lab and then destroyed just for stem cells. Some critics are concerned about health risks.

Thankfully for those critics, there is an alternative. Last November, scientists revealed a way to translate skin cells into stem cells. Many scientists hope that work will continue on both methods because the skin cell method may carry a cancer risk for recipients of the cell tissue.

An article by AP writer Malcolm Ritter states, “The cloning approach involves inserting DNA from a person into an egg, and then growing the egg into an embryo about five days old before extracting the stem cells. At that stage, the embryo is a sphere of about 150 cells.”

In the most recent work, skin cells were taken from two men and three embryos which matched the men’s DNA were produced. Further testing made it more evident that it was a clone.

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On the Net:

Harvard Stem Cell Institute

Stemagen Corporation

Source: redOrbit Staff

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