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| Article - Abstract. To view full article click on the article title. | |
MJA: Trounson - Cloning: potential benefits for human medicine Cloning: potential benefits for human medicine Of babies, lambs, medicine and milk MJA 1997; 167: 568-569 Recent developments in cloning of animal cells (such as the creation of the lamb "Dolly")1,2 and the consequent ban by President Clinton on cloning humans in the United States3 have stimulated much discussion of the merits and ethics of cloning. Indeed, a number of countries (e.g., Germany and Denmark) and Australian States (e.g., Victoria) ban all forms of cloning in human reproductive medicine by legislation or regulation. The most publicised advance in cloning attended the birth of Dolly, a lamb created from a ewe's mammary cell.2 This achievement showed that completely differentiated cells (both fetal and adult) may be reprogrammed to return to multipotential embryonic cells. This is done by inducing a quiescent state (G 0 phase of the cell cycle) in the somatic cell and then fusing it with the enucleated cytoplasm of a mature egg (Figure 1). The fused product then acts as an embryo and develops according to a preset maternal program rather than as the original somatic cell. At present, the procedure is relatively inefficient and confined to ruminant species (sheep and cattle).1,2,4,5 It is unsuccessful in rodents,6,7 which have been the model for understanding mammalian cell differentiation and tissue formation. It is not known if humans fit the ruminant or rodent model, although the recent births of rhesus monkeys derived from embryonic cells (Dr D Wolf, Senior Research Scientist, Oregon Regional Primate Research Center, Beaverton, Oregon, US, personal communication) suggest the former. This finding has major implications for medicine and agriculture, as it opens the way to use differentiated somatic cells as vectors for genetic engineering to produce transgenic animals and for gene therapy. Full Article: http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/xmas/trounson/trounson.html |
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2006 Ethics-Governance.com |
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