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Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, Scotland, said it was considering applying to the government's fertility authority for a license to carry out the procedure, known as therapeutic cloning.

Ian Wilmut, who led the team which created Dolly, said it would be "immoral" not to use therapeutic cloning for stem cell research, which many scientists believe could help treat disorders such as motor neurone disease, Parkinson's and diabetes.

Therapeutic cloning involves removing the nucleus of a human egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus from a patient's body cell, such as a skin cell. The egg is then artificially stimulated, causing the egg to develop in a way similar to an embryo fertilized by sperm.

Scientists envision extracting stem cells, which have the potential to turn into every type of cell in the human body, from the cloned embryo so that they would be a perfect transplant match for the patient.

"This will create totally new opportunities to begin to understand disease. To begin to test new drugs and to research disease in totally new ways," Wilmut told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

A South Korean-led team reported in February the world's first successful cloning of a human embryo and the culling of stem cells from it.

Britain legalized therapeutic cloning in 2001, becoming the first country in the world to do so. The move allowed scientists to create cloned embryos only for purposes of extracting stem cells for medical research. The extraction, which is done when the embryo is a few days old, means the clones cannot develop into babies. The embryos are allowed to be developed only until they are 14 days old.

But scientists wishing to perform therapeutic cloning in Britain also need a license from the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which has not yet granted any for the procedure. The HFEA says it looks "very carefully at the scientific, ethical and medical issues before granting any license for research on human embryos." The body wasn't immediately able to say whether it had rejected any therapeutic cloning license applications in the past.

'Deeply Offensive'

Wilmut said he accepted that, if his proposed application was successful, his research would face opposition.

"Of course, to some people, to do anything with a human embryo is a deeply offensive idea," he told the BBC.

"I think it is critical that we understand exactly the stage of development that we will be producing. Human embryos at this stage are so small that you can't see them without the aid of a microscope.

"They have perhaps 200 cells. There is almost no differentiation into the different cell types.

"Now I think we would all agree that humans at any stage of their life deserve respect," Wilmut added.

"But ... because at this early stage the embryo does not have that key human characteristic of being aware, to me it would be immoral not to take this opportunity to study diseases."

Roslin Institute is considering applying for a therapeutic cloning license but has not done so yet, spokesman Harry Griffin said. He added that the institute's internal ethics committee would first have to examine the application, and refused to speculate as to when the committee might reach a decision.

Science minister Lord Warner said any license application would be carefully considered by the HFEA.

Last year, the HFEA granted the Roslin Institute a license for human embryo stem cell research. The license permits the institute to carry out research on donated embryos created as a result of IVF treatment. It also allows researchers to create embryos by artificially stimulating donated human eggs in a process known as parthenogenesis, Greek for "virgin birth."

Dolly's birth in 1996 created an international sensation because although researchers had previously cloned sheep from fetal and embryonic cells, it was unknown whether an adult cell could reprogram itself to develop into a new being. Her arrival heightened concerns that human cloning was around the corner.

Dolly was put to death last year at the age of 6 after a veterinarian confirmed she had a fatal lung disease. Her creators said there was no evidence that cloning was a factor in Dolly contracting the disease.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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