Scientists from Boston Children's Hospital, US and the American biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) report that they have successfully used cloning technology to grow cattle kidney and heart tissue for transplant without the risk of rejection. The research is published in the June issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology...
Scientists from the Salk Institute in California have used gene therapy to correct a form of infertility in male mice. The study is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The mice in the study had mutations in a gene called KL2 in the Sertoli cells - cells...
The failure of gene activation might be responsible for problems that have been associated with reproductive cloning in animals. Many cloned animals have suffered from genetic abnormalities or premature death. Many cloned embryos are not viable, a lot of clone pregnancies miscarry and those animals that are born often have...
Stem cell therapy might eventually provide a treatment for muscular dystrophy, an illness which causes muscle wasting. Experiments in mice bred to have a condition resembling muscular dystrophy showed that some muscle strength could be restored using stem cells. Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh, US, took stem cells taken...
Debates on how to regulate human cloning are continuing in the US, with the prospect of a Senate vote on the issue looming imminent. The Senate is expected to vote on two competing cloning bills any time after its return from the US Memorial Day recess. One of the bills...
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Comment
Cloning spin is unnecessary
by Dr Jess Buxton
Last week saw the publication of yet another research paper on animal cloning. But are the results of this latest study good or bad news for scientists hoping to use cloned human embryo cells to develop new disease treatments à so-called 'therapeutic cloning'? Reading some of the UK and US media...