November 29, 2001	Thursday	Ramazan 13, 1422

LOS ANGELES: A tiny cluster of six human cells has become the latest poster child in a highly charged debate in the United States over the movement to ban the cloning of humans. It is a debate that pits deeply held convictions about the uniqueness of the individual and the sacredness of human life and whether it begins at conception, against deeply held convictions that cloning - at least for research purposes - could lead to a new and potentially lucrative field of “regenerative” medicine.

The announcement that researchers had cloned a human embryo using genetic material from adult cells adds urgency to a policy debate in Congress that had been pushed aside since Sept 11. The embryos created by Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) in Worcester, Massachusetts, failed to develop for more than a few days. But the company says its efforts will continue, prompting some lawmakers to renew calls for at least a temporary ban on all human cloning - private as well as publicly funded - while Congress decides the controversial issue.

Congress has banned the use of federal funds for such work. The House voted in July on a broad ban, but the Senate would need to follow suit to stop companies such as ACT from moving forward with their research.

The goal, the scientists say, is to clone embryos that grow sufficiently to produce embryonic stem cells, which can develop into all the major cell types the human body uses. By using genetic material from adult cells, scientists believe the resulting stem cells will be less likely to be rejected by a patient under medical care.

The ACT researchers, operating under the guidance of the company’s ethics-advisory panel, tried three approaches to cloning. Scientists first tried to take nuclei from adult skin cells and implant them in eggs whose nuclei had been removed. (The nucleus holds an individual’s complete genetic blueprint in chemical form as DNA.) When direct nuclear implants failed, the researchers inserted tiny “cumulus” cells, which typically nurture eggs while they form, into eggs. These yielded three cloned embryos, but none divided beyond six cells before stopping.

The team says it also used a technique that can trigger the formation of early embryos without fertilizing an egg. Known as parthenogenesis, it involved exposing 22 eggs to a chemical bath designed to induce them to form embryos. Five days later, only six eggs appeared to have developed embryos, but these failed to fully form structures that generate stem cells.

ACT’s results, though modest, have triggered fresh calls for Congress to finish work on anti-cloning legislation. “This corporation is creating human embryos for the sole purpose of killing them and harvesting their cells,” says Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee. Proponents argue that if the US bans such research, other nations would take the lead in this important field. —Dawn/LATS Service (c) Christian Science Monitor.