Scientists have for the first time used cloning to create human embryos that live long enough in a laboratory dish to have their stem cells harvested. The feat could set the stage for physicians to produce cells and tissues, tailored to a patient’s genetic identity that can treat a wide variety of human illnesses. The accomplishment also provides a road map for how to clone a person, an even more divisive undertaking.
The new work, performed in South Korea, represents "a major advance in stem cell research. It could help spur a medical revolution as important as antibiotics and vaccines", says Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), a company in Worcester, Mass., that’s also investigating the promising stem cell strategy called theutic cloning.
"However, now that the methodology is publicly available", Lanza adds, "I think it is absolutely imperative that we pass laws worldwide to pr the technology from being abused for reproductive-cloning purposes."
While some fertility doctors and a religious cult have claimed success at creating a pregnancy via cloning, they’ve offered no convincing proof. In contrast, the South Korean research is being reported at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle and will appear in an upcoming Science. "This is reality," says stem cell researcher John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University. "He4’e is a bona fide, refereed journal saying that a human embryo has been cloned and a cell line derived from it."
Although ACT has not yet published a report of a cloned human blastocyst, Lanza says that the South Korean success is "consistent with our own results." Theutic cloning appeals to Lanza and physicians because cells made this way could have the same DNA as a patient’s cells do and thus avoid rejection after they’re transplanted.
Seeking a compromise that would permit this strategy to be pursued, many scientists have called for legislation that would ban cloning to produce a baby but allow the creation of cloned embryos to generate stem cells for research or therapies. "The debate has been very polarized," notes bio-ethicist Laurie Zoloth of Northwestern University in Evanston.
According to the passage, the key factor in avoiding rejection after transplantation is to