Scientists at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York have successfully used 'therapeutic cloning' to treat mice with the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. The research, which is published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, showed that cells from cloned mouse embryos could alleviate the symptoms of the brain disorder. Team...
Researchers in Japan have managed to produce mouse sperm from mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells, according to a report in this week's advanced online publications of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The research may prove valuable in the quest to understand and control male infertility. In May...
PPL Therapeutics, the Scottish firm set up by the Roslin Institute to exploit the cloning technology used to create Dolly the sheep, announced last week that it is selling off its remaining assets. A last-minute rescue attempt, in which it was to relaunch focussing on a wound-sealing treatment called Fibrin...
Diane Blood has won her campaign to have her late husband's name on her children's birth certificates. Mrs Blood has been campaigning for legislation to be changed in the UK since her two children were born following the use of sperm taken from her husband after he died. Originally, the...
Most genetics professionals believe that parents should not be allowed to choose the sex of their child, according to the outcome of a debate held at the British Society of Human Genetics (BSHG) conference. Around 80 per cent of the 204 delegates attending the debate voted against carrying out sex...
Dr Panayiotis Zavos, a fertility doctor who runs a clinic in the US, has announced at a London conference that he is ready to implant a cloned human embryo into a human uterus. Dr Zavos' announcement, made on 15 September, follows his claims in April 2003 that he had created...
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Genetic Testing for Cardiovascular Disease Risk: Fact or Fiction?
by Steve Humphries
Heart attacks, the leading killer of people in the developed world, can be caused by one of a number of conditions, which are collectively labelled cardiovascular disease (CVD). Several companies in the US and Europe now market genetic tests that claim to identify individuals who are at higher than average...
Posthumous fathers and the law
by Juliet Tizzard
This week the law in the UK has been changed to allow the name of men who have died before their child was conceived to appear on that child's birth certificate. It's not a radical change in the law or any great philosophical shift in the way that we regulate...