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Enlarge ImageBad programming. These hybrid embryos, in which human DNA has been placed in animal eggs, don't turn on the same genes as human embryos. Credit: ACT/Cloning and Stem Cells Can a person be cloned? And can human-animal hybrid embryos produce stem cells that shed light on human diseases? "Probably" and "no" are the respective answers to these provocative questions, according to a study out today. Ever since researchers cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996 by transferring the nucleus of one of her cells into the nucleus-free egg of another sheep, scientists, ethicists, politicians, and the public have wondered...

Strategy for creating pluripotent cells called into question.The creation of human?animal hybrid embryos ? proposed as a way to generate embryonic stem cells without relying on scarce human eggs ? has met with legislative hurdles and public outcry. But a paper published this week suggests that the approach has another, more fundamental problem: it may simply not work. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, a stem-cell company based in Los Angeles, California, and his colleagues show that in their labs, early-stage human?cow, human?mouse and human?rabbit hybrid embryos fail to grow beyond 16 cells (Y. Chung et al. Cloning Stem Cells...

Some of Australia's leading bio-scientists are taking a closer look at a new, ethically acceptable stem cell research route that avoids the use of human embryos in the search for possible cures for degenerative diseases.  While not yet convinced that the "exciting" new method is as promising as using embryonic stem cells, they are studying the relative merits of the two approaches.  A major research breakthrough announced in Japan and the U.S. last November revealed that human "adult" skin cells can be reprogrammed into a new kind of cell -- an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell -- that shares an...

Fertility expert and television scientist Lord Robert Winston has accused senior members of the Catholic church of lying over the controversial embryo research bill after an Easter weekend which has seen it condemned from pulpits up and down Britain. A coalition of charities and support groups representing scientists, doctors and patients suffering from a wide range of serious conditions has written to every MP urging them to back the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which will allow the creation of part-human, part-animal embryos for medical research. At the weekend Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien said the bill would allow "grotesque procedures"...

Enlarge ImagePromising growth. (Clockwise from left) Three-, 5-, and 6-day-old cloned blastocysts. Credit: A. French et al., Stem Cells (17 January 2008) A California company reported today that it has, for the first time, cloned human embryos using DNA from adult skin cells. That's "an important first step" toward generating embryonic stem (ES) cell lines from such embryos, which can be used to study and treat diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's, says stem cell researcher George Daley of Harvard Medical School in Boston. Scientists want to be able to clone early human embryos, using cells from patients with...

Catholic group to campaign for study of adult stem cells

Back at the beginning of 2002, there was considerable optimism regarding the promise that embryonic stem cells were said to hold for millions of people suffering from fatal or debilitating medical conditions. Stem cells derived from human embryos, it was claimed, provided the best hope for relief of human suffering. Despite the profound ethical concerns regarding the use of human embryos for medical and scientific research, many Americans embraced this promise and the seemingly miraculous hope it offered.The challenges facing embryonic stem cells were formidable. First, there was the concern that the cells and their derived tissue would be...

Australian lawmakers this week defied Prime Minister John Howard and voted to allow researchers working with human embryonic stem (ES) cells to engage in the controversial practice of research cloning, otherwise known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). The change, recommended last year by a committee appointed by Parliament, ends a 4-year ban on the procedure. Stem cell researcher Alan Trounson at Monash University in Melbourne says scientists are "elated" by the 6 December vote in the lower House. The 82-to-62 margin of victory followed a 2-vote squeaker in the Senate last month. The new law, which will take effect...

Below is an illustration from the Family Research Council to help explain the dizzying science behind embryonic stem cell research

The Ten Great Myths in the Debate Over Stem Cell ResearchRev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D.1. Stem cells can only come from embryos. In fact stem cells can be taken from umbilical cords, the placenta, amniotic fluid, adult tissues and organs such as bone marrow, fat from liposuction, regions of the nose, and even from cadavers up to 20 hours after death. 2. The Catholic Church is against stem cell research. There are four categories of stem cells: embryonic stem cells, embryonic germ cells, umbilical cord stem cells, and adult stem cells. Given that germ cells can come from miscarriages that...

Human stem cells can be obtained from human embryos, produced either by in vitro fertilization of human eggs or cloning via somatic cell nuclear transplant, or adults.  The often stated advantages of embryonic stem cells are 1) their great promise, 2) their potential to form every cell type, 3) their rapid proliferation, 4) their lack of rejection and finally, 5) their usefulness in drug testing and disease models.  However, from a scientific and medical point of view these advantages are less clear.  The "great promise" of embryonic cells is often stated by scientists that either hold key patents or are...

Earlier this week, the deputy majority leader of the New Jersey general assembly, Neil Cohen, issued a "Dear Colleague" letter imploring support for a bill currently scheduled for a vote this coming Monday. Cohen wrote: "[T]he stem cell treatment will be needed in time of war, and civil disaster. Experts advise me that in the military context, stem cell treatment will be the method of healing severe wounds in the battlefield. In the context of civil tragedies, stem cell treatment must be available to the public for treatment of injuries sustained, such as lung and eye injury from gaseous attacks....

Seeking an Ethical Option to Embryonic Stem Cell Research    REV. THOMAS BERG There might be an ethically acceptable alternative for obtaining embryonic stem cells, says a bioethicist. Legionary of Christ Father Thomas Berg, executive director of the Westchester Institute, a Catholic ethics think tank located in suburban New York, sees hope for a process known as altered nuclear transfer. He gave an overview of the status of stem cell research in this interview with ZENIT.Q: What is the ethical problem with embryonic stem cell research? Father Berg: The problem is that the methods currently used to obtain these cells...

Legislators who view embryonic stem cell research as human cloning won first-round approval Thursday in the House for a proposal to encourage alternatives in finding cures for diseases. The measure would set up new state funds to finance research with adult stem cells or blood from newborns' umbilical cords, then grant a tax break to Kansans who contribute to either fund. Backers couldn't say how much the tax breaks would cost but hope to attract millions of dollars in contributions. The House voted 71-46 to add the proposal to an unrelated bill. Another voice vote advanced the amended legislation to...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Scientists in Britain have shown that stem cells extracted from human embryos can develop in the laboratory into the early forms of cells that become eggs or sperm. The research raises the possibility that one day eggs and sperm needed for infertility treatment could be grown in a dish. Preliminary experiments also suggest that scientists may eventually be able to use the technique to create a supply of eggs for cloning. But the more immediate benefit of the work could be a better understanding of why some men and women do not create their own sperm...

For the past few years many of the world's leading scientists have promoted so-called therapeutic cloning as the most promising way to produce clinically useful, genetically tailored, biologically versatile stem cells. That is why claims by a team of South Korean researchers -- one in 2004 that the first cloned human embryo had been produced, then another in 2005 that the process of producing embryonic stem cell lines from cloned embryos could be done routinely and efficiently -- were hailed as a watershed. Hwang Woo Suk, the lead researcher, became an international celebrity. The best American scientists traveled to Seoul...

Scientists at two universities — Harvard and the University of California, San Francisco — will try to develop embryonic stem cells from the adult cells of patients suffering from certain diseases. Their purposes in creating the cell lines, which require making an early human embryo, are to study how the diseases develop and also to see if replacement cells can be generated to repair the patient's own degenerating tissues. But the field, despite its much emphasized promise, faces many serious uncertainties. "Clinical applications may be a decade or more away," said George Q. Daley, a Harvard expert on blood diseases....

Otherwise Known as the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative Embryo Vivisection and Elusive Promises ActUnable to attract private investors, and shut out of federal dollars, the biotech industry has partnered with Hollywood and the disease lobby in a widely publicized attempt to fund human cloning and embryonic stem cell research with taxpayer dollars.This November voters will find the "California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative" on the ballot. This is a deceptively labeled $3 billion bond initiative, one which amends the California state Constitution.To be on the ballot, proponents are required to secure 600,000 signatures. But thanks to...

The ad in the back pages of the free Washington, D.C., news weekly was curious enough, warning women that they or their loved ones could suffer from debilitating diseases like Parkinson's or cancer and inviting them to let their eggs "be part of the cure." But it's had reverberations 2,500 miles away where a debate in California is raging over how scientists can acquire the human eggs critical to stem cell research -- specifically, whether it is ethical or even legal to pay women thousands of dollars to provide them. The ad in the Jan. 3 issue of The Washington...

Morally challenged cloning research The headline was buried in the Jan. 21 NewScience article reporting on another potential scandal in the cloning world. This one involved claims made in 2003 by researcher Hui-Zhen Sheng of China. In an paper published in New Scientist, Sheng reported he had successfully harvested embryonic stem cells from rabbit-human embryos, potentially finding a way to alleviate the shortage of human eggs needed for cloning experimentation.Scientists now wary after being duped by fallen clone king Hwang Woo-Suk are sounding the alarm on Sheng, because no one has been able to duplicate his work. Scientists did not...