Harvard Wants to Clone Human Embryos
By Associated Press,
Associated Press
| 10. 13. 2004
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Harvard University scientists have asked the university's ethical review board for permission to produce cloned human embryos for disease research, potentially becoming the first researchers in the nation to wade into a divisive area of study that has become a presidential campaign issue.
"We want to find new ways to study and hopefully cure diseases," said Harvard biologist Douglas Melton, a senior researcher who, along with a colleague, has applied for permission to do the work.
Embryonic stem cells are master cells that can form into any tissue of the body. Many scientists believe harnessing them might one day allow tissue regeneration to treat numerous diseases.
Harvesting stem cells from embryos kills the embryo, and some argue that it is tantamount to taking a life. President Bush has signed an executive order limiting federal help to all but existing stem cell lines.
Democratic challenger John Kerry supports widespread stem cell research.
The research group asking for a green light to advance its work is one of two teams affiliated with the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, a facility...
Related Articles
By Deni Ellis Béchard, The Washington Post | 10.07.2025
In 1949, when John Gurdon was a 16-year-old boarding school student at Eton College in England, his teacher described his biology studies as “disastrous” and his scientific ambitions as “ridiculous.”
“If he can’t learn simple biological facts,” his term report...
By John H. Evans, Craig Callender, Neal K. Devaraj, Farren J. Isaacs, and Gregory E. Kaebnick, Issues in Science and Technology | 07.04.2025
The controversy around a ban on “mirror life” should lead to a more nuanced public conversation about how to manage the benefits and risks of precursor biotechnologies.
About five years ago, the five of us formed a discussion group to...
Riquet Mammoth Kakao (c.1920)
by Ludwig Hohlwein, Public Domain via Flickr
Colossal, the de-extinction company, scored headlines (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) recently by announcing that they had created mice! Not just any mice, not even colossal mice, but genetically engineered, normal-size “woolly mice” that are the result of editing seven genes in mouse embryos. This Colossal presented as an important step toward making a specimen of charismatic megafauna – a...
By Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review | 05.06.2024
It was a cool morning at the beef teaching unit in Gainesville, Florida, and cow number #307 was bucking in her metal cradle as the arm of a student perched on a stool disappeared into her cervix. The arm held...
