According to a report in the Daily Mail this weekend, Michelle and Jayson Whitaker have now made up their mind to go ahead with the stem cell transplant that may save their son, Charlie. In June, the British couple, who were refused permission by the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology...
Supporters of therapeutic cloning have attacked a proposal to force another UN vote on a world wide cloning ban, a vote that the UN General Assembly had already voted to delay for two years. Delegates voted a month ago to postpone any decision on a cloning resolution until 2005, by...
Italian lawmakers are campaigning for stricter national regulation of the field of assisted reproductive technology. In a debate on new fertility laws that took place in the Senate last week, legislators from a variety of political backgrounds called Italy the 'Wild West of assisted reproduction', because people can travel to...
Japanese researchers have published an encyclopaedia of mouse genes - with actual DNA included. The book, published by the RIKEN Genomic Sciences Centre in Yokohama, is made up of 172 water-soluble pages. It contains dried, duplicate samples of all 30,000 known mouse genes, arranged as dots. The publishers hope that their...
US researchers have managed to transplant kidneys from genetically modified pigs into baboons, a development that could pave the way for animal-to-human organ transplants, Nature magazine reports. Scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital, US, used kidneys from pigs that have been genetically altered to reduce rejection by the human and...
Stem cell researchers in the US have reacted to comments made last week's by Elias Zerhouni, director of the US National Institutes of Health. They question his assertion that the available stem cell lines are sufficient to meet research needs. Zerhouni stated that the restrictions placed on federally-funded embryonic stem...
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A baby to save our son
by Rachel Coughlan
A Baby to Save our Son' is a television documentary account of the creation of Britain's first so-called 'designer baby'. Because the Whitaker family allowed us complete access to their lives; for the first time, viewers will be able to see what really took place. Their motivation for allowing the...