Britain first to license human cloning

By Knight Ridder Newspapers and The Associated Press

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The British license went to Newcastle University researchers who hope eventually to create insulin-producing cells that could be transplanted into diabetics.

South Korean scientists announced in February they had cloned an embryo and extracted stem cells from it. Britain, however, is the first nation to grant a license for the practice.

Cloning involves taking an egg cell from an animal, removing its DNA, and adding DNA from another cell, then coaxing it to divide a few times in a dish. With sheep, mice, cats and a few other animals, scientists have succeeded in implanting the cloned cells into the womb of a female and producing offspring that are genetic copies of another animal.

Most medical researchers interested in cloning want to use the technology to create embryonic stem cells. Such cells might be used eventually as a kind of replacement tissue to treat Parkinson's disease, diabetes, severe burns, heart disease or other conditions.

The more-established way to create stem cells is to use embryos destined to be discarded by fertility clinics.

Stem cells made by cloning offer one potential advantage: Cloning a patient's cells would remove much of the risk of rejection of any replacement tissue or cells generated.

Only two groups have made progress in the quest to use cloning to make stem cells, a process known as "therapeutic" cloning. First, in 2001, researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., claimed to have created a cloned human embryo, although they failed to make stem cells from it. The South Korean group, including Shin Yong Moon of Seoul National University, announced this year it had succeeded in cloning a human embryo.

Some people have "slippery slope" qualms: Once cloning is allowed, it opens the door to people who want to use the technology to make babies, a process known as "reproductive" cloning.

Others have raised the specter that researchers would implant a cloned embryo into a woman, abort it, then use it for research or harvest its tissues.

No one has succeeded in cloning a primate, and it is not clear whether "reproductive" cloning is possible, although several groups, including a UFO cult known as the Raelians, have made unsubstantiated claims.
 
The United States remains without a coherent policy on cloning. Although Congress has been debating the issue since the 1997 cloning of the Scottish sheep Dolly, no federal legislation has been passed that would restrict or ban the technology. So U.S. companies remain free to experiment with cloning without the need of a license, but few are inclined to do so, knowing that a bill banning the research might pass.

"We're in the worst possible situation," University of Pennsylvania ethicist Arthur Caplan said. Privately funded entities can do as they want, he said. "The public sector is unable to regulate or control anything."

"Those of us who are serious about medical applications would welcome the control," said Robert Lanza, a biologist at Advanced Cell Technology.

Some states have laws against cloning, and President Bush in August 2001 imposed restrictions on the use of federal money for research that harvests stem cells by destroying human embryos.

Congress is debating measures that also would prohibit cloning to make stem cells. One such bill has passed the House. The Senate version, sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., has stalled.

That bill is stifling research, Lanza said, because federal grants are not allowed and venture capitalists are reluctant to invest heavily in something that might be made illegal.

Lanza said his company was trying to overcome ethical qualms about embryos and cloning by creating stem cells another way. Researchers take immature egg cells and "fool" them into acting like fertilized eggs, dividing a few times as if becoming an embryo, he said.

The cells thus created have no potential to develop into a living animal or baby, he said, but they show some abilities similar to stem cells derived from embryos.

Even this research could fall under the category of cloning and be banned under Brownback's proposal, Lanza said.

Whether the United States will follow Britain and other countries that have encouraged cloning may depend on the results of the next election. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has promised to ease limits on stem-cell research.

The death in June of former President Reagan, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994, intensified the spotlight on the issue. Former first lady Nancy Reagan and 58 senators have asked Bush to relax the stem-cell funding restrictions, but he has refused.

Britain's ProLife Party lamented the licensing decision and was considering whether it could sue.

Regulations on cloning and stem-cell research vary around the world. Britain three years ago became the first country to allow regulators to license the method for stem-cell research. South Korea followed in December. Countries such as Sweden and Japan are expected to pass similar legislation soon.

The United Nations this year will revisit the issue of whether to propose an international treaty to ban "therapeutic" cloning.