Embryos survive stem cell harvest [View All]

[IDemo]

Source: MSNBC staff and news service reports


Company urges White House to endorse technique

updated 1:17 p.m. MT, Thurs., Jan. 10, 2008

WASHINGTON - A company that devised a way to make embryonic stem cells without destroying human embryos Thursday urged President Bush to endorse the technique.

Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology reported on Thursday that it has grown five batches of cells using the method, which is adapted from a procedure to test embryos for severe genetic diseases. Called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, the procedure involves taking a single cell from an embryo when it contains only eight or so cells.

The technique usually does not harm the embryo, which is frozen for possible future implantation into the mother's womb. The team, led by ACT scientific director Robert Lanza, similarly froze human embryos and used the single cell that was removed as a source of human embryonic stem cells.

Lanza said the technique could be used to create mass quantities of embryonic stem cells without destroying a human embryo — in contrast with the methods currently used for extracting embryonic stem cells.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22594571/