Oregon Scientists Clone and Kill Human Embryos for Dubious Research

Photo Credit: LifeNewsBy David Prentice. Scientists in Oregon announced today that they had created cloned human embryos, and then destroyed the embryos to extract embryonic stem cells.

The cloning technique is essentially the same one used to create Dolly the cloned sheep, with some modifications to make cloning work using human eggs and human cells. This is the first claim of growing human embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos since the fraudulent claims in 2004 and 2005 of Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk. The report, published online in the journal Cell, also highlights the fact that women are a target for raw materials for the cloning technique, since “premium quality” eggs are required to make their human cloning technique work.

It’s a grave concern that some scientists are still pursuing human cloning, a technology that will open the door to human engineering and a brave – but highly dangerous – new world. Human cloning by this technique requires the specific creation of a new individual, albeit cloned, at the embryo stage, using human eggs and human tissue cells.

Modern science has passed this by, especially in regards to stem cells. Creating and destroying cloned human embryos to extract their embryonic stem cells is unethical, and the entire faulty concept of using the cloning technique has been superseded by uncontroversial techniques. Read more from this story HERE.

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Study: Scientists Clone Stem Cells From Human Skin Cells

By Michael Allen. Human stem cells were cloned from adult human skin cells by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), according to a study published in the scientific journal Cell today.

According to a press release, OHSU scientists removed the DNA from donated egg cells and replaced it with DNA from an adult’s skin cells.

The researchers hoped that the stem cells would grow in the cloned embryo and would be a match for the skin cell donor. This process could help doctors perform reconstructive surgery on the skin donor.

Lead researcher Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipo said that the stem cells (that grew in the embryo) were able to change “into several different cell types, including nerve cells, liver cells and heart cells.”

Dr. Mitalipov told NPR that to get the stem cells growing, researchers use some electricity and a small amount of caffeine. Read more from this story HERE.