Human Cloning: A Viable Reality

Stemagen Corp. of La Jolla, California announced last Thursday that it had successfully created cloned human embryos from donor DNA and eggs. Using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a technique whereby the nucleus is removed from a donor cell and placed in a egg cell devoid of its nucleus to be reprogramed by the egg, the company produced five new human embryoic cells. The press release goes on to explain:

In the experiments, the researchers removed the nuclei of mature oocytes from healthy young women who had previously donated eggs for successful infertility treatments. The SCNT technique was then used to insert DNA from an adult male donor into the oocytes. The DNA was derived from a type of cell called fibroblasts, obtained from skin biopsies.

Subsequently, several of the reconstructed oocytes continued to develop as normal embryos, to the blastocyst stage. Extensive and carefully documented genetic tests were performed to confirm the genetic identity of the cloned embryos. In three embryos, tests showed the same DNA as the male fibroblast donor.

In one of the three cases, additional tests showed that the embryo had another type of DNA, called mitochondrial DNA, from both the female oocyte donor and the male DNA donor.

Mitochondrial DNA testing is viewed as an essential proof of successful human cloning -- particularly after previous fabricated reports from a South Korean research group. Amidst this background of controversy, the researchers took extraordinary steps to ensure that their experiments were properly conducted and documented. These included approval by an independent review board and confirmation of the genetic results by an independent laboratory, among other steps.

The primary hope is that this research can be used to combat infertility, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, and spinal cord injury, among others.

According to its ethical principles, "Stemagen's mission is to maintain exemplary standards in human embryonic stem cell research in accordance with the highest ethical and research principles." While I applaud their efforts to alleviate suffering and do so in an ethical manner, consequences of this research for the future needs to be carefully monitored. Creating human life (and despite the fact that we are talking about nuclei, DNA and eggs, we are still talking about a fully potential human being) for the purpose of taking it apart to see how it ticks is questionable. Additionally, there's nothing in this report that tells me that these clones could not be allowed to grow from blastocyst to fetus, from "full term" baby to adulthood.

If so, what then?