Posted on 08/22/2005 8:23:17 AM PDT by radar101
"I think the media has confused people into believing embryonic stem cell is the only way to go."
And hence, another reason to love FR. We can talk about and disseminate the truth. ;)
However, I don't quite agree with your description:
The only hurdle is the ethical one.
If I take an UNfertilized egg and remove its haploid nucleus, replace it with the complete nucleus of another cell.....I have neither destroyed "life" nor created an embryo capable of forming anything other than what the nucleus I replaced the original with was differentiated to be. In no way could that ever be an embryo that could create a life, even if implanted into a womb. I've destroyed a single non-viable cell and created a single semi-differentiated somatic cell. I have not destroyed a life in any manner and have not created a life in any manner. SOME people still have a problem with this. I know better.
You can't know that the embryos you create are capable of implantation and gestation. No one has attempted implantation (as far as has been published or even speculated about - outside of Raelian circles.)
What we do know is that the embryos Hwang developed were able to divide in vitro for 5 days or so, and he was able to develop stem cell lines from the inner cell mass. These were not simply differentiated somatic cell lines. They may have been defective, or starved of some factor we are unaware of, or simply destroyed before they could demonstrate that they were capable of implantation.
What ever it is Hwang's team created and destroyed using human nuclear material, it is the same sort of construct that Snuppy is and Dolly was. Some environmental factor is all that is preventing this "NT" embryo from developing toward his or her nature: a human being.
A year ago, no one had reported the ability to make a human clone. In fact, no one had been able to successfully clone primates using adult somatic cell nuclear material so that the embryo survived more than a few divisions.
The veterinarian, Dr. Hwang, had his work published in September.
By February, we had reports of cloned primates with implantation and gestation, although none of the monkeys survived to birth. The researchers had built on the success of Dr. Hwang to modify their methods. I'm sure any day we'll hear they tweaked their process a little more, using what Hwang has published about what he has learned in his later, increasing success in cloning both humans and dogs.
I'm confused about your description of your embryos as being "differentiated." I was under the impression that the cytoplasm of the oocyte "reprogrammed" the donor's DNA to return to a totipotent stage. Otherwise, you'd just end up with a homogeneous cell culture, rather than embryos that develop to the blastocyst stage. I was under the impression that one of the tests to determine "stem-ness" of cells was the ability to form embryoid bodies, or at least several different cell lines.
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