UK Breakthrough as Human Embryo Cloned

[chlamor]

UK breakthrough as human embryo cloned

British and Korean scientists lead revolution in stem cell technology

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

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.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,2763,1488401,00.html

[BattyDem]

1. It must be nice to live in a country that has science.

[The Doctor.]

2. Sorry to say... but the main reason I remembered that S. Korea's

Human cloning team was on top of the game was because of the name of the head scientist.

(Sorry- still a kid at heart... a dirty, rotten, depraved kid... speaking of which... you do know how to tell who the head scientist is...right?)

[short bus president]

3. The journal 'Science' is biased

against such proven techniques as laying on of hands and prayer-healing. I hope they will counter this godless stem-cell nonsense with some hard scientific Benny Hinn shit real soon...

:sarcasm:

[Moderator]

4. kick

[rodeodance]

5. EMBRYO CLONED IN BRITAIN (Human--first for Europe)

Last Updated: 21:44 UK, Friday May 20, 2005

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13351381,00.html

EMBRYO CLONED IN BRITAIN



A human embryo has been cloned in Britain for the first time by a team of scientists using eggs from 11 women.

The team from Newcastle University is hoping the research will pave the way to successful treatments for degenerative diseases.


Three cloned human embryos were grown in a laboratory and they lived for three days - one survived for five days.

The Newcastle team says the work should eventually see the end of degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and help paralysed victims of spinal injuries recover fully.

The scientists announced their important advance as South Korean researchers revealed they had created the first customised embryonic stem cells, genetically tailored to match a group of patients.

[DrDebug]

6. Don't know what to think

I am releived to hear that it is only for therapeutic purposes, but once you've crossed the bridge... and that's what I find worrying.

--- --- ---
The British government introduced legislation in order to allow licensed therapeutic but not reproductive cloning in a debate in January 2001 after an amendment to the Human Embryology Act. However on November 15, 2001 opposition groups won a High Court legal challenge that effectively blocked cloning of embryos for therapeutic purposes. They discovered a loophole which allows reproductive cloning to be performed also. Anti-abortion groups say that a new debate is necessary because of recent technologies having been developed that might circumvent the need for embryonic cloning. The government overruled this attempt at the beginning of March 2002 and currently therapeutic cloning is allowed under license of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The first known licence was granted on August 11, 2004 to researchers at the University of Newcastle to allow them to investigate treatments for diabetes, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cloning#Limits_of_cloning

[rodeodance]

7. yes, i understand the sentiment.

[Sequoia]

8. No, "The Boys From Brazil" were the first.

[bennywhale]

9. The scary sentence for me is "lived for three days". It's a bit too

close to farming humans for me. I don't know. I just don't trust scientists sometimes. Scientists often have a very different moral book to other peopl. I'm not generalising, its just that they deal in fact and progress, rather than judgements of right and wrong.

So this can be done lets do it, rather than should we.

(This is only two miles down the road from me also, so i hope nothing escapes in the future)

[Tempest]

12. The scientific community leaving the U.S. in its dust

First South Korea and now the UK.

But gays can't marry and intelligent design is taught in schools!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

10. Uh-oh. Now the boy King is going to have to negate his only buddies

in the war on terror.

[Az_lefty]

11. Uh oh, i bet they try to clone the bushmeister...

:scared:

[Stella_Artois]

13. No reason to..

If he dies in office, they could just shave another monkey.