Korean scientists of the Seoul National University published a paper on Feb. 12 announcing that they had successfully created a line of stem cells from a cloned human embryo.
Such cloned stem cell lines could one day be used to treat diseases such as Parkinson's Disease and Diabetes without facing the problems of tissue rejection, as the cells would be genetically identical to those in the patient.
The paper, entitled "Evidence of a Pluripotent Human Embryonic Stem Cell Line Derived from a Cloned Blastocyst" was published in the journal Science by Professor Woo Suk Hwang and 14 of his colleagues.
The team of scientists harvested 242 eggs from 16 unpaid female volunteers, which were used with normal adult donor cells in a process called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) to create 30 cloned embryos of the adult donors. These embryos were cultured to the blastocyst stage, where the embryo consists of roughly 100 cells.
Of all the embryos cultured, about 20 had their inner cell mass removed in attempts to create an embryonic stem (ES) cell line. One ES cell line was successfully produced, which was confirmed to be genetically identical to the normal cell donor used for the SCNT process.
SCNT, the process that was used to create Dolly the sheep, is a process that begins with an egg cell.
The nucleus of the egg cell is removed and replaced with a small cell from an adult. The two are then fused with one of a variety of techniques including electric shock, or treatment with a chemical solution.
When the process works properly, a cloned embryo is created.
In the case of Dolly the sheep, that embryo was implanted in the womb of a surrogate mother and was carried to term in a manner similar to in-vitro fertilization, a technique used to help infertile couples conceive.
So called "stem" cells are merely cells that can divide and develop into specific types of body cells, such as the specific cells that make up skin or nervous tissue.
Adults possess these types of cells, but researchers have found they do not have the same ability to become any cell in the body that embryo derived stem cells do.
The creation of embryonic stem cells, however, requires the destruction of embryos, which has raised ethical questions in the case of human embryos.
Many, including religious groups such as the Catholic Church, have raised concerns that these recent developments in cloning represent efforts to use humans as "industrial material" as papal advisor Bishop Elio Sgreccia put it.
The destruction of the embryo in the process of creating a ES cell line has also been a focus of debate amongst those who believe that the embryo should have the moral and legal rights of a human.
Proponent's of the technology, however, stress the great potential for curing disease that ES cells have.
Many scientists have backed the idea that treatments could very well be developed with ES cells that could aid people with many diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, and others.
Students at Hopkins possess a wide variety of views on the morality of this type of research.
When informed of the recent research developments sophomore Dan Luperchio stated that even though his father, who has diabetes, could eventually benefit from ES cell research, he would "prefer people stay away from [ES cell research]. I don't think it's a very good idea, even though it could produce some benefits."
Senior Derek Yang expressed concern that people might attempt to clone a human. However, Yang said, "I'm inclined to say that therapeutic cloning is OK. Its for a good purpose, but it does raise ethical issues."
Sophomore Omar Hameed Butt voiced his full support for continued research in this area, saying that the cloned embryos that were destroyed were "as much alive as any other cell from the donor."
The distinction between therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning is especially important to the issue.
Therapeutic cloning is when stem cells are produced from a cloned human embryo for treatment of a disease. This is the type of research Prof. Hwang and his colleagues are pursuing.
Reproductive cloning is the implantation of a cloned human embryo into a surrogate mother for development and birth.
The majority of scientists join Prof. Hwang in heavily discouraging reproductive cloning, as the process is far from foolproof, and would likely result in many miscarriages, birth defects, and other difficulties.
In the United States, since President Bush's decision in 2001, no federal funding is granted to scientist for any work with human embryonic stem cell lines unless they were created before August, 2001.
This decision on the part of the President has been criticized as dramatically slowing, or making research in the area of human ES cells impossible.
Some states also have laws unfavorable to human ES cell research. Michigan, for example, has illegalized all research that involved SCNT to create human embryos with penalties of up to a $10 million fine and jail time of up to 10 years.
