A technical breakthrough has enabled scientists to create for the first time dozens of cloned embryos from adult monkeys, raising the prospect of the same procedure being used to make cloned human embryos.
Attempts to clone human embryos for research have been dogged by technical problems and controversies over fraudulent research and questionable ethics. But the new technique promises to revolutionise the efficiency by which scientists can turn human eggs into cloned embryos.
It is the first time that scientists have been able to create viable cloned embryos from an adult primate ”“ in this case a 10-year-old male rhesus macaque monkey ”“ and they are scheduled to report their findings later this month.
The scientists will also demonstrate that they have been able to extract stem cells from some of the cloned embryos and that they have managed to encourage these embryonic cells to develop in the laboratory into mature heart cells and brain neurons.
Scientists who know of the research said it was the breakthrough that they had all been waiting for because, until now, there was a growing feeling that there might be some insuperable barrier to creating cloned embryos from adult primates ”“ including humans.
The development will not be welcomed in all quarters. Opponents of cloning will argue that the new technique of manipulating primate eggs to improve cloning efficiency will lead to increased attempts at creating ”“ and destroying ”“ cloned human embryos for research purposes.
Well, her e we go again. Now is the time for someone of a biological backgroud to step up and tell us again that this is all smoke and mirrors, scientific exhibitionism and t he like. But the head in the sand approach simply is running out of sand. So, tell me, someone, what does scripture say about a cloned human? Is he a human at all? Is he too a child of God? Is the Anglican Church even paying the tiniest bit of attention to science and scientism and its massive effect on Christianity? Larry
We are all co-creators with God of human life–every baby that enters the world is the result.
Why should this be frightening to you? If sperm + egg = life, why should we fear egg + DNA + sperm = life? Would this dethrone God? I don’t get it.
Larry, an even more frightening thing than creating a life has occurred. It’s called taking a life. Let’s try prevent that from happening.
Why is it frightening? Because cloning give s man the God-function.
Cloning and gene splicing have one end at last, t he manufacturing of the “superior man.” Of all man’s grave weaknesses, nothing is more deadly that intellectual vanity, and cloning is the poster child for this arrogance. Why are you NOT frightened? Abortion is a dreadful crime, perhaps sometimes a dreadful necessity. But cloning of a human being has no justification of any sort – unless you can justify making a superman. Shall we say now “And Man made man in his own image?” Larry