SCNT (somatic cell nuclear transfer) is a technique in which the genetic material from an egg cell is replaced with that of an adult or embryo body cell of the same animal species. Also known as cell nuclear replacement (CNR), or popularly as 'cloning'.
A South Korean court has convicted disgraced stem cell scientist, Hwang Woo-Suk, of embezzling funds and purchasing human eggs for research, after a trial lasting over three years. Hwang was given a two-year sentence suspended for three years by the Seoul Central District Court last week...
A variation of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), reported online in the journal Nature, could be used in humans to allow women with a certain group of incurable inherited conditions - known as mitochondrial disorders - to have children without passing on the condition. Because the technique, developed by Dr Shoukhrat Mitalipov and team from the Orgeon National Primate Research Centre, US, involves the the sperm from one monkey and two eggs from different monkeys...
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has published new rules that will govern state funded embryonic stem (ES) cell research now that the seven years of restriction under the Bush administration have come to an end. The new rules restrict research to stem cells sourced from surplus embryos donated by IVF patients and, consequently, forbid research on any embryo that was created specifically for the purposes of research (either through voluntary donation of human eggs or by employing...
Researchers in South Korea have announced the creation of four healthy puppies that glow bright red under UV light. Reported in the journal Genesis, the team from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Seoul National University claim the new model will be of importance in the study...
President-elect Barack Obama's victory in last week's US presidential elections is being celebrated by supporters of embryonic stem (ES) cell research. Senator Obama has been a vocal advocate of removing the current restriction on federal funds for human ES cell research imposed by President Bush in 2001...
A team of scientists from the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan have cloned healthy mice from the cells of animals frozen 16 years ago. The technique they used involved taking the nucleus of a cell from a frozen mouse and injecting it into a...
Two announcements made last week have important implications for the future progress of human stem cell research in the UK. Both were related to research involving 'therapeutic cloning' - the creation of stem cell lines from patients with incurable diseases (such as Alzheimer's and cardiomyopathy) in order to...
US stem cell researchers have called for prohibitions on the payment of compensation to egg donors to be removed if an egg shortage crisis is to be avoided. In an article published in Nature last week, Kevin Eggan and Douglas Melton from Harvard University's Stem Cell Institute...
Two teams of Australian scientists have applied for a licence to use eggs left over from fertility treatment to create cloned human embryos, Australian newspapers report. The application, which is the first to be made in the country, has been submitted to a National Health and Medical...
The Upper House of the state of Western Australia has voted against legislation to permit the cloning of human embryos for research and to also allow surplus embryos to be donated for medical research following IVF. The bill, which if passed would have brought the state in...
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