THE INDEPENDENT
News could lead to tissue-transplant operations for range of debilitating disorders, also including MS and spinal cord injuries
The scientific milestone, which comes 17 years after the birth of Dolly, represents a major turning point in human cloning research which could now lead to new tissue-transplant operations for a range of debilitating disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and spinal cord injuries.
However, the breakthrough will also raise serious ethical concerns about the creation of human embryos for medical purposes and the possible use of the same technique to produce IVF embryos for couples wanting their own cloned babies - which is currently illegal in the UK.
The scientists who made the advance emphasised that the work is designed to produce replacement tissue for transplant operations from a patient's own skin cells, rather than to improve the chances of so-called “reproductive cloning”. However, other scientists said the achievement inevitably brings the prospect of cloned babies a step nearer.
Generating a plentiful supply of embryonic stem cells from a patient's own skin cells has been one of the holy grails of medical science. Although the procedure has been achieved in laboratory animals - such as mice and monkeys - it has until now alluded several attempts on human material.
Shoukhrat Mitalipov, who led the research team at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, said that he added caffeine to his cell cultures to create viable embryonic stem cells from just a small number of human eggs.
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News could lead to tissue-transplant operations for range of debilitating disorders, also including MS and spinal cord injuries
Thursday 16 May 2013
Scientists have finally made the long-awaited breakthrough in human
cloning by turning skin cells into early-stage embryos that were then
used to create specialised tissue cells for transplant operations, it
has been revealed today.
For the first time, researchers have unequivocally created human
embryonic stem cells using the cloning technique that led to the birth
of Dolly the sheep. However, unlike Dolly, the human embryos were
destroyed when their stem cells were extracted.The scientific milestone, which comes 17 years after the birth of Dolly, represents a major turning point in human cloning research which could now lead to new tissue-transplant operations for a range of debilitating disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and spinal cord injuries.
However, the breakthrough will also raise serious ethical concerns about the creation of human embryos for medical purposes and the possible use of the same technique to produce IVF embryos for couples wanting their own cloned babies - which is currently illegal in the UK.
The scientists who made the advance emphasised that the work is designed to produce replacement tissue for transplant operations from a patient's own skin cells, rather than to improve the chances of so-called “reproductive cloning”. However, other scientists said the achievement inevitably brings the prospect of cloned babies a step nearer.
Generating a plentiful supply of embryonic stem cells from a patient's own skin cells has been one of the holy grails of medical science. Although the procedure has been achieved in laboratory animals - such as mice and monkeys - it has until now alluded several attempts on human material.
Shoukhrat Mitalipov, who led the research team at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, said that he added caffeine to his cell cultures to create viable embryonic stem cells from just a small number of human eggs.
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