UCI to attempt therapeutic cloning
By Gary Robbins,
Orange County Register
| 05. 16. 2007
UC Irvine will become one of the few centers in the world with a major program in therapeutic cloning, the controversial attempt to generate embryonic stem cells from people who suffer such afflictions as spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease.
Researchers believe it is possible to develop patient-specific treatments from the stem cells since the cells would likely be accepted by the donor's immune system. The technique has never been achieved in humans.
The research has stirred controversy because it involves harvesting stem cells from a surplus embryo, and because some people fear that it would lead to the cloning of humans. Federal law prohibits scientists from trying to use an embryo to clone a person.
"No sperm will be involved in any of this work," says Hans Keirstead, the neurobiologist who was given permission by the campus to try to create "stem cell lines that genetically match human patients … to better study conditions ranging from diabetes to Parkinson's."
Keirstead has worked on embryonic stem cells for seven years at UCI and succeeded in restoring movement in partially paralyzed...
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...
