Medical and Ethical Issues Cloud Plans to Clone for Therapy
By Andrew Pollack,
The New York Times
| 02. 13. 2004
In cloning human embryos and extracting universal stem cells,
scientists in South Korea have taken a big step toward a tantalizing
goal: growing tailor-made replacement tissues for people who are sick
or injured. Imagine new cardiac muscles to restore a heart after a
heart attack, insulin-producing cells for diabetics or neurons to stave
off Parkinson's disease.
But significant scientific
barriers lie between this accomplishment and any actual therapy,
experts said. Moreover, ethical objections have put such research
off-limits to some scientists - including the many in the United States
who rely on federal money - and lack of investment has felled many
companies trying to develop cell-replacement therapies.
The
South Korean work is a step toward what is called "therapeutic
cloning." The work so far is "proof of concept of cloning but it's not
therapeutic yet," said Dr. Steven A. Goldman, chief of the division of
cell and gene therapy at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
It
is likely to be several years before tissues derived this way could
even be tested in patients, he and other experts said...
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