Human cloned embryos

Oddly, there is very little notice of the confirmation that Advance Cell Technology has created cloned human embryos. Current bioethics and science reporting evidently takes the creation and destruction of human embryos for granted. In fact, the embryonic humans were created with the intention of destroying them.

No one - or almost no one - seems to notice.


Wired Science has one of the few reports that narrows in on what should be the headline:"Research Breakthrough: Human Clones May Be Genetically Viable."

It is significant that (as reported earlier) human-animal hybrid embryos do not appear to be a practical source for human embryonic stem cells. However, after reading the article itself, it appears that the story with in the story may be - I believe should be - even more significant.

The article, "Reprogramming of Human Somatic Cells Using Human and Animal Oocytes," is available online and free, here, in pdf form. Supplemental information is available here.

Lanza and his colleagues report that they used human eggs and human donor DNA to create about 50 cloned human embryos, all females. They also write that they used a human embryo started by in vitro fertilization as a "control," or material to test the validity of their other results.

Cells were removed for testing from some of the cloned human embryos and the IVF human embryo. Other than that, we do not know the fate of these embryonic human girls.

Edited January 27, 2010 to correct a "Label" typo

Human-animal embryos don't work for stem cell production

The New Scientist has a good review article that explains a new research report from Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, that attempts with "thousands" of embryos created by placing human DNA into the oocytes or eggs of animals have failed to produce stem cells. NatureNews, the news arm of the journal, Nature discusses the report, here.

The abstract of the article, "Reprogramming of Human Somatic Cells Using Human and Animal Oocytes" published in Cloning and Stem Cells, is available here. The list of researchers is very long and they are from several different laboratories.

Each of the news articles above includes statements from researchers who do not believe that human-animal cloned embryos are a dead-end for stem cell researchers. However, the confirmation of the outcome from several labs, with different researchers, is strong evidence that it is unlikely that this technique is a reasonable way to produce "patient specific" stem cells - those that are an exact match for the donor of the DNA.

I have not read the actual article, yet, but from the news articles and the abstract, it appears that the "cybrids" do express the genes of the donor DNA and are clones of the donor. However, while enucleated human oocytes are able to reprogram the DNA of the donor to result in embryos that divide to the stage at which it is possible to harvest embryonic stem cells, the emptied eggs of cows and rabbits do not. The cybrids only divide to about the 16 cell stage and do not turn on the genes responsible for pleuripotency, or "stem-cell-ness."

See my Update, written after I read the report.

Human-pig embryo approved in UK

The "cybrid" or hybrid human-animal embryos are created in the laboratory by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transplantation, using emptied eggs from animals and the nuclear and cellular DNA from humans.. We know that there are currently experiments on-going with the human embryos made using emptied cow eggs (more on the "ease" of making these embryos, here), and now the British have authorized the development of pig-human embryos.

The experimenters admit that the problem will be achieving embryos and embryonic stem cells that do not contain DNA left from the egg. Proving the purity and "human-ness" of the stem cells will be a complication that I do not believe they will be able to overcome, at least for transplantation into humans, except possibly in the case of severe, last-hope disease and trauma.

The ethical debates about xeno-transplants and treatments using living organs, cells and tissues from animals carry the risks of transmitting animal diseases that humans have no immunity for and the development of new strains of disease that cross species lines. Ethicists have predicted that at least the early patients will have to live their lives in isolation at the worst, and have life-long surveillance at the best. (more on the debate, here and here.)

However, the researchers will probably be able to develop other uses, such as the early warning chemical weapon detection systems that are being developed by our own military, using human embryonic stem cells.

Rather than humanitarian and medical hope, I believe that time will show us that the research is the result of pure greed, with each lab hoping to come up with a product that can be patented and sold. I'm disappointed that the courts and "ethics" bodies in the US and UK have allowed these patents of human organisms. The drive to "create" new human cells and artifacts using human DNA is the logical outcome.

Human-DNA-in-cow-egg embryo created in UK

Scientists in the UK report that they have created an embryo using the transfer of human nuclear DNA from an embryonic human cell into the oocyte of a cow that has had the nucleus removed. These embryos are the "hybrids" or "cybrids" that we've been discussing for the last few years.

From the Guardian:

Apparently these researchers have achieved some success - but by using the nucleus from a very early embryonic cell, which might be easier to reprogramme than an adult cell. At the moment it is impossible to assess the significance of this report until we know more details of what has been achieved ... the results have been repeated and, importantly, they have been reviewed by independent researchers in the usual way."

Josephine Quintavalle, of the pressure group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said the research should not worry those opposed to hybrid embryos because the Newcastle work did not seem convincing. "The embryos didn't survive, they were created from embryonic stem cells rather than adult tissue, and there's a lot of question marks over the research."

But she added: "What it has done is wake up the public to this reality, that while parliament is getting in a tizz about this, while the whole country is up in arms discussing it, the HFEA is already issuing licences."

Supposedly, if the technique is perfected to allow the embryos to survive longer, these embryos will allow the study of the early embryo and production of embryonic stem cells in order to learn more about and find cures for diseases like diabetes and Parkinson's.

However, even if the embryos are disorganized and fail early, or if they are destroyed at day 5 or 6 or whenever, the ethical determination as to whether they are "human" or "bovine" has not been cleared up. We won't know what they are until several labs and several trials successfully create these embryos.

If the embryos appear to divide in an organized manner, producing human proteins and the differentiation necessary to create human embryonic stem cells, then they are essentially human embryos. This is a case of the old if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc., logic.

Since the stated intention is to destroy the embryo, and we don't know whether they are human or not, those of us who find the killing of humans, even at the earliest stages will also hold that it is inherently unethical to even begin the process.

A discussion about the discussions about the announcement can be read at one of Nature.com's blogs, "The Great Beyond."

From the thread, "UK hybrid embryo: in perspective - April 02, 2008,"

New Scientist has attacked the group for announcing the achievement through the media rather than through a scientific publication. The Independent focuses on the ethical debate. Not many organisations outside the UK gave it any coverage at all, and those that did may have been under the impression that it was a world first, not mentioning previous achievements in the field (eg. Life Scientist, Australia).

"Sheeple"

Scientists have reportedly engineered sheep with organs consisting of up to 15% human cells. A human's bone marrow stem cells are implanted in a developing sheep ( a fetal lamb), which then develops with the chimeric organs, such as livers, kidneys, etc.

The goal is to make multiple sheeple (I'm adapting this term from a derogatory slang comment for those people who will believe anything) for each patient, for back-ups in case organ donors are ever needed.

The concern with this research has always been the risk of inter-species viral infections that, like HIV and bird flu (actually every flu that we've had) will cross species to endanger the lives of many more humans than just the ones that receive the organ transplants.

There's a huge "yuck factor," here.

Cow-Monkey blastocyst research

The truth about the goal of researchers seeking to make chimeras and clones is in the news, today. (A big "yuk" factor, here.)

I'm convinced that the future is in stimulating and recruiting the patient's own stem cells and regenerative potential, in site, where and when it's needed.

Animal research is acceptable, but once they start manipulating human DNA, we're dealing with humans until proven differently.

The (South) Korean Times reports on work in the lab of Koo Deog-bon:

The team, headed by Koo Deog-bon at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, said Friday they had established a monkey blastocyst, the source of stem cells, last month via interspecies nuclear transfer.

``We started the task of infusing monkey somatic cells into cow ova, from which the nuclei had been removed, last November. After hundreds of failures, we made a blastocyst in January,'' Koo said.

``It failed to thrive. But we became sure of the potential of interspecies research _ creating a blastocyst and extracting stem cell batches from it,'' the 41-year-old senior researcher said.

A blastocyst is an embryonic form at a stage where it consists of 128 cells. With its inner cells still undifferentiated, the blastocyst is the most important source of embryonic stem cells.

Scientists have made monkey blastocysts through intra-species nuclear transfer _ implanting monkey somatic cells into enucleated monkey ova. But this is the first time that a blastocyst has been established while using non-monkey ova.

``We will generate more monkey blastocysts to achieve our goals of culturing stem cell lines with them earlier than our competitors,'' said Koo at the state-backed institute.

Developing cloned non-human primate stem cells is significant in speeding up futuristic therapy by evaluating the pre-clinical safety and immune-tolerance of stem cell transplantation.

``If we are successful, we will be able to apply the technologies to humans _ making stem cells with animal ova _ if society allows such an idea,'' Koo said.

As Koo pointed out, the interspecies experiments can in part solve some of the ethical debates surrounding the making of cloned human embryonic stem cells because they don't use human eggs.