Cloned embryos have been created from an adult monkey for the first time, leading scientists to speculate that cloning human embryos using stem-cell therapies is a significant possibility. The success in the US proves that viable cloned embryos can be produced from primates.
Though further work is required before the technique can be applied to human cells, it suggests that it will be feasible to clone embryos from the DNA of living patients, and derive working stem cells from them. These embryonic stem-cells could then be transplanted to treat diseases such as Parkinson’s and Diabetes. Such therapeutic cloning has been a goal for medical research since the birth of Dolly the sheep in 1997.
Some monkeys’ embryos have been cloned before, but they have always died before reaching the stage at which stem-cells can be extracted. And the only human embryo to have been cloned so far, by a British team, died almost immediately. This lead scientist to speculate that primate cloning was so difficult that therapeutic cloning would always remain unpractical.
The research has been peer-reviewed and a group of scientists confirmed beyond doubt that the embryonic stem-cells are true clones of an adult male macaque monkey called Semos. The success is due to a new technique for handing the eggs during the nuclear transfer process of removing and placing stem-cell from the monkey into eggs of female primates. The achievement has a low success rate (0,7 %) which means that it is still too early to use the new technique to attempt to clone human embryos for reproductive purposes, but it does suggest that h
uman therapeutic cloning is a possibility.
Scientists are in the position to assure the world that the ability to produce embryos stem-cells from cloned human embryos would create entirely new opportunities to study serious inherited diseases, possible therapies and drug discovery. These are enough reasons to keep on studying human cloning but as closer we are to that goal it is also likely to strengthen calls from an international ban on reproductive cloning. This has been recently done by the United Nations and should also be supported as well as therapeutic human cloning is.
Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.
Article’s Title: First cloning of monkey embryos rises hope of a great leap on medical science.
Author: Mark Henderson, Science Editor.
Date of Publication: November 15, 2007.
Source:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2870675.ece
Though further work is required before the technique can be applied to human cells, it suggests that it will be feasible to clone embryos from the DNA of living patients, and derive working stem cells from them. These embryonic stem-cells could then be transplanted to treat diseases such as Parkinson’s and Diabetes. Such therapeutic cloning has been a goal for medical research since the birth of Dolly the sheep in 1997.
Some monkeys’ embryos have been cloned before, but they have always died before reaching the stage at which stem-cells can be extracted. And the only human embryo to have been cloned so far, by a British team, died almost immediately. This lead scientist to speculate that primate cloning was so difficult that therapeutic cloning would always remain unpractical.
The research has been peer-reviewed and a group of scientists confirmed beyond doubt that the embryonic stem-cells are true clones of an adult male macaque monkey called Semos. The success is due to a new technique for handing the eggs during the nuclear transfer process of removing and placing stem-cell from the monkey into eggs of female primates. The achievement has a low success rate (0,7 %) which means that it is still too early to use the new technique to attempt to clone human embryos for reproductive purposes, but it does suggest that h
uman therapeutic cloning is a possibility.Scientists are in the position to assure the world that the ability to produce embryos stem-cells from cloned human embryos would create entirely new opportunities to study serious inherited diseases, possible therapies and drug discovery. These are enough reasons to keep on studying human cloning but as closer we are to that goal it is also likely to strengthen calls from an international ban on reproductive cloning. This has been recently done by the United Nations and should also be supported as well as therapeutic human cloning is.
Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.
Article’s Title: First cloning of monkey embryos rises hope of a great leap on medical science.
Author: Mark Henderson, Science Editor.
Date of Publication: November 15, 2007.
Source:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2870675.ece
No comments:
Post a Comment