Human clones!

[zakur]

No, not the Raelians. The South Koreans.

Story

Scientists in South Korea report that they have created human embryos through cloning and extracted embryonic stem cells, the universal cells that hold great promise for medical research.

Their goal, they say, is not to clone humans but to advance understanding of the causes and treatment of disease. But the work makes the birth of a cloned baby suddenly more feasible. For that reason, it is likely to reignite a fierce debate over the ethics of human cloning.

The paper, to be published tomorrow in the journal Science, provides a detailed description of how to create human embryos by cloning.

``You now have the cookbook, you have a methodology that's publicly available,'' said Dr. Robert Lanza, the medical director of a company, Advanced Cell Technology in Worchester, Mass., that had tried without success to do what the South Koreans did.

Although the paper is written in dense jargon, summarizing its findings by saying, ``We report the derivation of a pluripotent embryonic stem cell line (SCNT-hES-1) from a cloned human blastocyst,'' its import was immediately clear to researchers.

``My reaction is, basically, Wow,'' said Dr. Richard Rawlins, an embryologist who is director of the assisted reproduction laboratories at Rush University Medical Center. ``It's a landmark paper.''

 

[Rolfe]

I heard a radio interview with one of the South Korean professors this morning. He's very anti reproductive cloning and laughed quite a lot when the presenter mentioned the high-profile proponents of that (Antorini?), but when challenged that he had actually helped bring that closer he sort of nervously agreed.

It does sound like a great bit of science. This is obviously the general direction to go so far as stem cell or other replacement therapy is concerned - so much for that junk we were listening to last month about artificially creating identical twin embryos, implanting one and freezing the other for possible future stem cell provision. Stupid idea.

Rolfe.

 

[Soapy Sam]

They better watch G.W.Bush and the Salvation Army don't decide on a regime change

 

[Agammamon]

SEND IN THE CLONES!