UK Breakthrough As Human Embryo Cloned

[Legion]

From the Guardian website.

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday May 20, 2005
The Guardian


The blastocyst or early stage embryo produced by the Newcastle team. Photograph: RBM Online


Scientists in Newcastle have successfully cloned a human embryo, a breakthrough that places Britain at the forefront of the cutting edge but highly controversial field of embryonic stem cell technology.
The clone was created as part of the Newcastle group's research into new treatments for diabetes. The team, lead by Miodrag Stojkovic at Newcastle University and Alison Murdoch at the Newcastle NHS Fertility Centre, was the first in Europe to be given the go-ahead to clone embryos for research last year, after being granted a licence by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

Only one other group in the world, lead by scientists in South Korea, has perfected the technique to clone human embryos. That team, lead by Woo Suk Hwang at Seoul University today announced going one step further than the Newcastle researchers by creating stem cells tailored to patients with specific medical conditions.
Dr Hwang took skin cells from patients suffering from spinal cord injuries or a variety of genetic disorders and used the cloning process to produce stem cells matched to each. Because the stem cells were cloned from the patients' own skin cells, they would not be rejected by the body if used in any future therapy. Their study appears in the US journal Science.

The Newcastle team's work was praised by scientists who believe embryonic stem cells, which can be extracted from cloned embryos, will pave the way to cure some of the most intractable medical conditions, including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's disease and even paralysis. But the development has reignited the debate over the ethics of creating early-stage embryos for research, with critics accusing the scientists of trivialising life.

Britain is one of a handful of countries to permit the cloning of human embryos for research, or therapeutic cloning. Several countries throughout Europe have introduced bans or severe restrictions on cloning research and the UN is pushing for a global ban.

To create the clone, the team collected 36 surplus eggs donated from 11 women under going IVF treatment. Each egg had its nucleus replaced by a whole human embryonic stem cell from a batch held at the UK stem cell bank. The eggs were then given a brief electrical shock to kickstart the growth process.

From 10 of the eggs, the researchers were able to create three very early stage embryos, with one developing into a blastocyst, a ball of cells no bigger than the head of a pin. Attempts to extract stem cells from the blastocyst failed, however, because the clone did not survive beyond five days. The experiment was done as a proof of principle, to see if eggs collected from women undergoing IVF treatment would be healthy enough to produce clones. The research has been submitted for publication in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online.

The team has gained permission from the HFEA to create more clones from cells taken from patients with Type 1 diabetes. The stem cells from those clones will carry the genetic defect that causes diabetes and will enable scientists to study the disease in far greater detail than ever before. "With these stem cells we will be able to study the very roots of the disease," said Dr Stojkovic.

The group has also been granted permission from an ethics committee to seek eggs from women who produce too many after IVF treatment. During the experiment the team found that only fresh eggs used within an hour after being collected were good enough to produce clones.

"We know from our analysis of IVF data that if a woman has 20 eggs, her chance of getting pregnant is no higher than if she has 18, so on that basis we can be very confident that the women who donate would not significantly decrease their chances of having a baby," said Prof Murdoch.

Dr Stojkovic emphasised it was a technique to get stem cells. "We're not doing this to clone human beings," he said.

Stephen Minger, director of the stem cell biology laboratory at King's College, London, said the Newcastle work was important because it confirmed that other labs are capable of repeating the South Koreans' success.

Pro-life groups criticised the work as unethical. "This work trivialises life. An embryo, no matter how small, no matter how it is created, is a human life. We must respect that," said Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics.

The HFEA's right to grant permission for the work is being tested in the high court after lawyers for Christian Fellowship won a judicial review of its decision.

[ May 20, 2005, 05:58 AM: Message edited by: Legion's Back ]

[The Missing Link]

I'm just not down with this.


"There are some who call me... Link?"
"Carpe Gaium Domesticum!" (Seize the Cucco!)
Zelda: The Grand Adventures | Triforce MUCK
ザ行方不明リンク
悪いユウモアの賢人

[DELICIOUS POISON]

waaaaah waaaah waaaaaah

[BEARD BURGER MASTER]

God, NO. This is just plain wrong. Why the hell would they want to clone? Not only am I against it morally, but also because regular cloning without any use for it has no meaning. People are wanting to have sex without having a baby, so why are they wanting a child without sex?

[Link2000]

^Yes, regular cloning without any use is wrong, but did you even read the article?

[The Missing Link]

Stem cell research blah blah blah...

The problem boils down to this. I support stem cell research. I do not support embryonic stem cell research upon lines of cells not already extracted. To clone a human for the purpose of exploiting embryonic stem cell research is something I'm not kosher with.

Sure, you might say that there is a purpose, but if you don't agree with the purpose...


"There are some who call me... Link?"
"Carpe Gaium Domesticum!" (Seize the Cucco!)
Zelda: The Grand Adventures | Triforce MUCK
ザ行方不明リンク
悪いユウモアの賢人

[Wyborn]

Rarely as I agree with TML, this does disturb me on some basic level.

Cloning = t3h awesome
Stem cell research = t3h righteous
Cloning human embryos solely to be harvested for stem cell research = ......not...not so much. Gives me an idea for a hell of a science fiction story, though.

[ May 22, 2005, 05:40 PM: Message edited by: Wyborn ]

[Link2000]

Seeing that there is a purpose and not agreeing with it is a huge step forward of being ignorant and not seeing a purpose at all.

Personally, I don't view a group of 8, undedicated cells as a human, so I have no problem with this at all.

[Beam Yosho the Drunkard]

Originally posted by Link2000:
Seeing that there is a purpose and not agreeing with it is a huge step forward of being ignorant and not seeing a purpose at all.

Personally, I don't view a group of 8, undedicated cells as a human, so I have no problem with this at all.

It's not human yet.

I'm not sure how it works exactly, but you can only extract them when they're in a fetus form, not cell form.....right?

[The Missing Link]

We can debate exactly when a group of cells is considered a living being for hours on end, but the problem is that no one will be able to change the mind of anyone else on the issue. The fact is that it's really not a question of science but philosophy, and each of us are going to believe what we will.

The issue really boils down to how Wy presented it. Is it a good thing to "create life" for the sole purpose of "harvesting stem cells"? Or, alternatively worded, is it a good thing to "genetically engineer cells" for the primary purpose of "experimenting on stem cells"?


"There are some who call me... Link?"
"Carpe Gaium Domesticum!" (Seize the Cucco!)
Zelda: The Grand Adventures | Triforce MUCK
ザ行方不明リンク
悪いユウモアの賢人

[Link2000]

Beam, the cells they attempted to harvest were from befor even the embryo stage, not even close to being a fetus. Like the article said, the blastocyst died before even 5 days of existance. If it had of lasted slightly longer, they could have gotten what they needed.

No one here is taking a 7-month fetus and killing it.

[The Missing Link]

Link2K, you don't realise the reservations the other side of the argument has. There are really three schools of thought out there, and you're talking to the two that most right-wingers are not:

School #1: Life begins at birth. That means that so long as you're in the womb, you're not a living being.

School #2: Life begins at some sufficient time after conception, say, n months, n at least three, usually more. That means once it begins to look like a human being, then it's a living being, but not before.

School #3: Life begins at conception. Since a conceived baby will eventually grow into a human being, its identity from the moment it begins growing is human and never anything else; thus, it is considered throughout its entire existence.

Putting forth an argument from a #1 or #2 approach will just be wasted words to someone with a #3 theology.


"There are some who call me... Link?"
"Carpe Gaium Domesticum!" (Seize the Cucco!)
Zelda: The Grand Adventures | Triforce MUCK
ザ行方不明リンク
悪いユウモアの賢人

[Link2000]

Yes, I am well aware of that TML. Beam asked a question about stem cells being harvested from a fetus, and I said that this was not the case here. You certainly are correct that we won't get anywhere debating this though.

[Jonathan Good]

Originally posted by Luigi007. Again, just Luigi007.:
God, NO. This is just plain wrong. Why the hell would they want to clone? Not only am I against it morally, but also because regular cloning without any use for it has no meaning.

There is already a form of cloning on the planet and it's germans F_cking other germans.

People are wanting to have sex without having a baby, so why are they wanting a child without sex?

Abstinence shoves a nail up a prick's ass and makes them too constipated to have sex. Mustaches and Dr. Suess are the source of all fetishes

Link2K, you don't realise the reservations the other side of the argument has. There are really three schools of thought out there, and you're talking to the two that most right-wingers are not:

School #1: Life begins at birth. That means that so long as you're in the womb, you're not a living being.

School #2: Life begins at some sufficient time after conception, say, n months, n at least three, usually more. That means once it begins to look like a human being, then it's a living being, but not before.

School #3: Life begins at conception. Since a conceived baby will eventually grow into a human being, its identity from the moment it begins growing is human and never anything else; thus, it is considered throughout its entire existence.

Putting forth an argument from a #1 or #2 approach will just be wasted words to someone with a #3 theology.

Life may begin at conception, but the soul is born of darkness.

[Erdawn Il Deus]

Life may begin at conception, but the soul is born of darkness.

Aaahahahaha angst.