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A British pro-life group warns that a new type of embryo research, likely to be approved this week by a U.K. government panel, undermines human dignity. Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority is expected to give a green light this week to U.K. laboratories seeking to create the first animal-human embryos for medical research using eggs taken from dead cows. British scientists want to use the hybrid embryos in order to research genetic diseases. Anthony Ozimic, political secretary for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, opposes the embryo-destructive research. He says that an "a-nucleated" cow egg will only...

Animal study shows promise for treatment of Alport syndrome BOSTON -- The discovery that bone-marrow derived stem cells can regenerate damaged renal cells in an animal model of Alport syndrome provides a potential new strategy for managing this inherited kidney disease and offers the first example of how stem cells may be useful in repairing basement membrane matrix defects and restoring organ function. Led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), the findings are described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), which appears on-line the week of April 24, 2006. Symptoms of Alport syndrome,...

Even before her first birthday, Jashaia Trinity Small startled more easily than other children exposed to loud noises. Once an ambitious walker, she began to fall more often and needed support to stand up. She blinked repeatedly, "and when you called her, she had to look around the room to see where you were," her mother, Nadine Green-Small recalls."By the time she was a year and a half, I knew something was really not right," Green-Small said. Last fall, Jashaia Small was diagnosed with Tay-Sachs disease, a genetic disorder most often diagnosed in eastern European Jews and only rarely in...