UK breakthrough as human embryo cloned
(The Guardian)
Updated: 2005-05-20 16:17

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.

The Newcastle team's work was praised by scientists who believe embryonic stem cells, which can be extracted from cloned embryos, will pave the way to cure some of the most intractable medical conditions, including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's disease and even paralysis. But the development has reignited the debate over the ethics of creating early-stage embryos for research, with critics accusing the scientists of trivialising life.

Britain is one of a handful of countries to permit the cloning of human embryos for research, or therapeutic cloning. Several countries throughout Europe have introduced bans or severe restrictions on cloning research and the UN is pushing for a global ban.

To create the clone, the team collected 36 surplus eggs donated from 11 women under going IVF treatment. Each egg had its nucleus replaced by a whole human embryonic stem cell from a batch held at the UK stem cell bank. The eggs were then given a brief electrical shock to kickstart the growth process.

From 10 of the eggs, the researchers were able to create three very early stage embryos, with one developing into a blastocyst, a ball of cells no bigger than the head of a pin. Attempts to extract stem cells from the blastocyst failed, however, because the clone did not survive beyond five days. The experiment was done as a proof of principle, to see if eggs collected from women undergoing IVF treatment would be healthy enough to produce clones. The research has been submitted for publication in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online.

The team has gained permission from the HFEA to create more clones from cells taken from patients with Type 1 diabetes. The stem cells from those clones will carry the genetic defect that causes diabetes and will enable scientists to study the disease in far greater detail than ever before. "With these stem cells we will be able to study the very roots of the disease," said Dr Stojkovic.

The group has also been granted permission from an ethics committee to seek eggs from women who produce too many after IVF treatment. During the experiment the team found that only fresh eggs used within an hour after being collected were good enough to produce clones.

"We know from our analysis of IVF data that if a woman has 20 eggs, her chance of getting pregnant is no higher than if she has 18, so on that basis we can be very confident that the women who donate would not significantly decrease their chances of having a baby," said Prof Murdoch.

Dr Stojkovic emphasised it was a technique to get stem cells. "We're not doing this to clone human beings," he said.

Stephen Minger, director of the stem cell biology laboratory at King's College, London, said the Newcastle work was important because it confirmed that other labs are capable of repeating the South Koreans' success.

Pro-life groups criticised the work as unethical. "This work trivialises life. An embryo, no matter how small, no matter how it is created, is a human life. We must respect that," said Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics.

The HFEA's right to grant permission for the work is being tested in the high court after lawyers for Christian Fellowship won a judicial review of its decision.

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