I've been waiting to hear of Lu Guangxiu's stem cell research which was supposed to have been published in Nature sometime this summer. Meanwhile, the creator of Dolly the sheep, is hoping to proceed in Scotland, according to yesterday's news. The following is from the BBC:
<<<<< Bid to clone human embryos The first application to clone human embryos in Britain could be lodged within six months. Professor Ian Wilmut, from the gene expression and development division of Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, plans to seek permission to use the technique which created Dolly the sheep on early human embryos. Research could then begin on stem cells -- with the aim of one day helping combat heart disease or testing how people might respond to treatments for other ailments. There are still various regulatory hurdles to overcome, but Professor Wilmut is confident that he will be successful. However, the Catholic Church in Scotland has voiced its opposition to the use of human embryos for any such purpose. Dolly was cloned by the institute, becoming the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. Professor Wilmut hopes to use nuclear transfer, the technique which cloned Dolly, to clone early human embryos -- genetically identical to cells taken from the adult. External bodies "An application for human stem cell research has evolved and is now under way," he confirmed. "If it is approved by the institute's ethics and management committee then it will face external bodies. "We expect the whole process to take about six months." The licensing process would involve at least four ethics committees, including the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's science and clinical review boards. Professor Wilmut's research has suggested that all cloned animals are genetically and physically defective. In January, he confirmed that Dolly had arthritis and said the condition may have arisen because of genetic defects caused by the cloning process. He stressed he had no wish to clone babies by implanting cloned embryos into a surrogate mother, a process which is illegal. Professor Wilmot believes that this would be unethical and unsafe. Instead he hopes to create stem cell lines that could one day help treat heart disease or test how someone might respond to drugs. His research could focus on growing cardiac cells to repair a failing heart and nerve cells to treat Parkinson's disease, or islet cells for diabetes sufferers. Opposition However, the Scottish Catholic Church said it opposed the use of human embryos for stem cell research. "An embryo is a human life with potential. To use that as a means to someone else's end -- however well intentioned -- is wrong," said a spokesperson. "We make no distinction between that and the forcible removal of organs from a living adult, to another adult." Last year American company Advanced Cell Technology claimed to have cloned early human embryos. >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:khudson@;handlo.com ________________________________________________________________________
