Cloning

[asthmatic camel]

Plans to create IVF twins and use the embryo of one as a source of spare body parts have been condemned by experts.

British gynaecologist Dr Paul Rainsbury and US doctor Panos Zavos hope to artificially produce pairs of twins by splitting fertilised embryos.

While one embryo will be allowed to develop into a fully formed person, the other will be kept in deep freeze to provide spare tissue or organ parts with which to treat its sibling, if needed.

But the scheme has been condemned by British fertility experts such as Richard Kennedy, secretary of the British Fertility Society.

He said: "This procedure would not be legal in the UK. It is, in fact, a way of producing clones, or two identical babies, by artificial means."

He added: "While we accept that this happens in nature, it is not acceptable practice in the context of an artificial clinical procedure. We would condemn it."

It is understood Dr Rainsbury will refer British couples undergoing in-vitro fertilisation treatment to Dr Zavos's clinic in Kentucky.

While splitting embryos is not technically difficult, using one half to create a baby has not been clinically proven.

Dr Zavos and Dr Rainsbury are also set to announce the start of a search to find the first woman willing to give birth to a human clone.

Dr Zavos claims to have developed a new cloning method which does not rely either on embryo splitting or transferring cell nuclei, the technique used to create Dolly the Sheep.

A spokesman for the charity Life said: "The British public needs to be reminded that cloning human beings for any purpose is both highly dangerous and ethically objectionable."

Dr Rainsbury runs the Rainsbury Clinic in London which provides a gender selection service for couples who want to choose the sex of their children.

I'd prefer to shuck off my mortal coil when the time is right. It's aready possible to have pig lungs etc. inserted to prolong life. I might find it amusing to have a curly pig's willy for a minute or two but , on reflection, I'd be unable to accept organs from a presumably conscious being, grown for that purpose, in order to extend my life.

Any comments ?

 

[Rolfe]

I'm not against cloning in principle, if it was technically safe. Any acceptably safe way of getting a baby doesn't sound like a sin to me. Of course, given that this is a baby, it must have all the rights and protections accorded to any other incipient member of the human race.

However, this spare parts thing is simply grotesque. So grotesque and indeed so impractical that I wonder if it's a wind-up. If the guy is sincere, I question his sanity.

I haven't seen anything technical about his proposal, but in what form is he planning on storing the "spare part"? A four-cell blastocyst? Well, OK. But suppose, in 60 years or so, the living "twin" needs a new heart or a new liver, how do you get that from a four-cell blastocyst? Only by letting it develop into a foetus, then a baby. Indeed, to get a big enough heart, you'd have to let it grow up at least into its teens.

How practical does this sound? OK, we let your frozen twin develop into a person. But we won't accord this person any rights, so we can kill him for his organs. And it will take over ten years, by the way.



Or perhaps there is some idea that the undifferentiated embryo cells might be directly cultured into a heart or a liver. Er, how? If we could do that from embryo cells, we'd probably find some way to do it from stem cells harvested from the patient's own body. And indeed I think this is the way such research will go in the future.

I just can't see how this idea is actually practical, never mind the ethics of it. And come to that, how many people actually end up needing transplants anyway - not that many.

OK, what am I missing? What is the actual point of this (apart from taking legitimate work away from the authors of science fiction)?

Rolfe.

 

[asthmatic camel]

I knew I could rely on Rolfe for an incisive response; in future, I shall ask him to vet my posts.

 

[Rolfe]

There's been more on the radio this afternoon, but I still don't get it.

One medic did discuss the embryo splitting technique as a method of improving the embryo yield for older women undergoing IVF, so improving the chances of a successful pregnancy. With you so far.

But no word at all of the practicalities of using a split embryo frozen at a very early stage of development many years ago to produce usable transplant organs. I maligned the science fiction writers. The ones I read think their plots through a lot better than this guy.

By the way, have y'all rea Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold? The best overview of the various possibilities of cloning technology and their morality there is, all wrapped up as a cracking adventure story.

Won the Hugo a few years ago. Teriffic read.

Rolfe.

 

[Jon_in_london]

I would not have problems accepting a pigs organs. Give me its heart/kidney/liver as a transplant and I'll gladly eat the rest for dinner.

What people dont appreciate with cloning is that you still nned a mother to with a womb in which the foetus can gestate for 9 months, you cant keep it in a box Stan!

After birth the clone will need nuturing, feeding etc... until it becomes at least a teenager and each one will be a distinct indivdual with its own distinct personality. None of this 'genetic memory' bollocks like there was in Aliens 4.

You cant just grow up a few thousand clones in a warehouse of tanks overnight.

 

[Rolfe]

You cant just grow up a few thousand clones in a warehouse of tanks overnight.

And if you could, I'll bet you'd have passed the point where you could routinely grow a nice new heart from a few harvested stem or myocardium cells.

Why do apparently reputable scientists come out with such crackpot suggestions, and why do the media bother reporting them?

Rolfe.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Wait a minute.
You mean we would be able to chop up teenagers for spare parts?

ANY teenagers?

This idea may have merit.

 

[Rolfe]

Wait a minute.
You mean we would be able to chop up teenagers for spare parts?

Much more prosaic, I'm afraid. I read in the newspaper that the proposal was to store the spare embryo at the few-cells stage as a source of stem cells. It wasn't even clear whether the intention was to grow these in vitro into organs, or whether they were just looking ahead to possible applications for injections of stem cells themselves.

For the second, it's pretty tenuous, and the eventuality could also be addressed by freezing cord blood at parturition, as has already been suggested in a few quarters. For the first, we're nowhere near being able to grow actual organs in vitro, and if we could, again the chances are we'd soon figure how to do it from bone marrow material. Or at worst, saved cord blood.

Can you spell "publicity-hungry scientist"?

Rolfe.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Stem cells maybe, but interrupting the pregnancy to get that second embryo? Heck, just get stem cells from the umbilical cord.

I agree in cloning parts, but not whole bodies. If you can't just clone a heart, then get an artificial one or whatever.

Of course this story is going to garner attention

 

[Rolfe]

Stem cells maybe, but interrupting the pregnancy to get that second embryo?

Oh, I see your point. They were talking about versions of IVF, where of course the cloned embryo would be split off before the "real" embryo was returned to the uterus. But if you were to consider this as a general tool for natural conception, it would involve a totally unacceptable interference with the pregnancy.

It's completely nuts.

Hey, how come when I spout off ill-thought-out nonsense off the top of my head, I don't get national coverage on radio, TV and in the newspapers?

Rolfe.

 

[Jon_in_london]

For the second, it's pretty tenuous, and the eventuality could also be addressed by freezing cord blood at parturition, as has already been suggested in a few quarters. For the first, we're nowhere near being able to grow actual organs in vitro, and if we could, again the chances are we'd soon figure how to do it from bone marrow material. Or at worst, saved cord blood.

Frankly I cant see why this isnt done more often.

Save the cells and you can give the person an autograft if he ever needs stem cells (like when he has cancer) should reduce the chances of GVHD to virtually zero.

Furthermore, if the person dies and doesnt use his cells the they can be added to the donor database.

 

[Rolfe]

Frankly I cant see why this isnt done more often.

I believe there are companies offering this on a commercial basis. However, there are questions about cost/benefit, and long-term viability, and the suspicion that the technology just isn't sufficiently advanced for there to be any real guarantee that the benefit will be there if it's ever needed.

At the moment it looks as if the companies doing it may have more of an eye on short-term profit than really being there in 60 years time for when they might be needed, but I may be maligning them, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it doesn't become standard practice some time in the medium-term future.

Assuming global warming hasn't wiped us all out first.

Rolfe.

 

[MRC_Hans]

About ethics on animal organs: Unless you're a hard-core veggie, this is ridiculous! If you can grow and kill an animal in order to eat it, surely you should have no reservations against receiving organs from it?

Otherwise, I'm with Rolfe; the twin idea is daft. But that is not unusual, it often seems that even excellent minds seem to go off on a tangent. Like collecting solar power on the Moon and beaming it to Earth .

My favorite example is the fellow who (back when big central mainframes were still all the rage) started out on the following trail of reasoning:

1) To be fast, computers have to be built very compact.

2) This gives problems with cooling as large amounts of power is dissipated in a small place.

3) A solution is to cool them with liquid nitrogen.

(So far, so good)

4) Liquid nitrogen can be collected in vast amount on some of Jupiter's moons.

(rather unreal, as nitrogen is abundant right here on Earth, and the cost of cooling it has to be lower than transporting it here from space)

5) Why not simply build the mainframe computer on a Jovian moon to save transporting liquid nitrogen?

.... Yeah, make a superfast computer and place it a couple of light-hours away. Why didn't I think of that ?




Name of the originator of this idea? Isaac Asimov. (yeah, that Asimov).

Hans