Posted on 05/19/2005 12:22:48 PM PDT by cooper72
British scientists say they have successfully cloned a human embryo - the country's first.
The Newcastle University team took eggs from 11 women, removed the genetic material and replaced it with DNA from embryonic stem cells.
Three of the resultant clones lived and grew in the laboratory for three days and one survived for five days.
The critical factor for success appeared to be how quickly the egg was collected and manipulated.
Patient-specific stem cell first
Any longer than an hour and there was no success, Professor Alison Murdoch and colleagues found.
The clone that lasted for five days had been collected and manipulated within 15 minutes.
The ultimate aim of the research is to make cloned embryos from which stem cells can be harvested and used to treat diseases.
Stem cells have the ability to develop into virtually any tissue in the body and could, in theory, be used to replace damaged cells in conditions such as Parkinson's disease and diabetes.
But Professor Murdock said this was still a long way off.
"We are talking about several years before we are talking about a cell-based therapy that can go back into the patient.
Colleague Dr Miodrag Stojkovic said: "I'm really happy but I know that this is just the beginning of a long journey so we have to continue to try to derive stem cells that will definitely help us one day to cure diseases."
Therapeutic cloning is allowed in Britain, although reproductive cloning - the cloning of human embryos with the intention of creating a baby - was made illegal in 2001.
The UN recently voted in favour of a ban on all human cloning, but this was non-binding which means the UK can continue to do therapeutic cloning.
But cloning opponents criticised the research.
Julia Millington from the ProLife Alliance said cloning for research purposes was profoundly unethical.
Josephine Quintavalle from CORE said: "No matter how it is created, a human embryo's destiny should be to live and not to be turned into human stem cells."
Life said cloning was "unsafe and inefficient", and involved exposing women to dangerous fertility drugs in order to collect sufficient eggs.
South Korean scientists cloned 30 human embryos last year.
However, they took the genetic material from normal cells from the same women who were the egg donors and combined it with these eggs.
The UK research is published in Reproductive and BioMedicine Online.
Oh, no. Did Klinton and Klinton provide the eggs?
The author's constant use of the word "manipulated" is ominous, I think...
This is not going to help the Social Security problem! We apparently live too long as it is.
A chilling sentence. Sounds like it could have been written by Mary Shelley.
Creating fetuses for harvesting. What's wrong with this pic? (rhetorical)
Science is a lot like the internet. You can't stop it everywhere at once, and those who fight it the hardest will nonetheless queue up for benefits it brings when the time comes.
mad scientists bump.
Our sad, sad times. God created the ability to procreate through the union of a man and a woman - period. I shudder to think of the justice awaiting mankind from the Hand of God.
"In the year 6565
You won't need no husband, won't need no wife You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too From the bottom of a long glass tube"
Apparently not, or are you assuming Gods ire?
I shudder to think of the justice awaiting mankind from the Hand of God.
I guess we'll just have to get cracking on the engineering... Imagine the "Hand of God" vs the "Kung-Fu Grip of Man". Epic battle, we could start a religion based on the tales of the contest.
I wonder, how long before this slippery funnel of cannibalism slides from embryo harvesting for body parts to fetal harvesting? Not long you can be assured of that, once the dehumanization is successful at this earliest age in the human lifetime.
And what will The Creator's response be when humans embrace cannibalism of younger humans as a means to extend lives of older humans? Humankind are delusional if they believe The Creator will ignore the slap. We are beginning our own demise for God is not mocked.
And our elected representatives are trying to formulate and pass a bill to allow this same cannibalism in America. Think about it: we the people are about to embrace cannibalism in stealthy mode, and I'd wager, without much resistance because the utilitarian aspect will be the focus from the mainstream societal engineering godless media, not the truth that it is cannibalism.
Evil struts the planet now, ushered along by the 'enlightened' who succeed in dehumanizing humans at their earliest age in their lifetime.
God gave us brains. We use them. Get over it.
Lately, if there is an anti-life success, there seems to always be a clique of FReepers prepared to fight for it...to the death...
You wrote: We resisted the use of vaccinations for the little one in our home if the vaccine was derived from fetal tissue harvesting
My Reply: Can you clarify that for me? Are vaccines made out of fetal tissue or what?
The justice will be handed out for many sins this is just one of many.
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