The last time I checked with biologists, philosophers and even politicians on both sides of the debates about abortion, stem cell research and cloning, they were pretty certain human individuals were defined by two sets of chromosomes (half from the male, half from the female) which were arranged in the one-celled zygote after fertilization.
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If I understand the tetraploid complementation technique utilized in these experiments correctly, then, scientists would no longer need to generate embryos via somatic cell nuclear transfer (cloning).
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"It doesn't have to be, you know, embryo stem-cell research or fetal or cloning, " Lott said.
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But critics of human cloning and stem cell extraction methods essentially believe a human egg that begins to divide for any reason should be considered an embryo, and a potential person, that deserves protection under the law.
Even Dolly the sheep, who was produced by cloning via somatic nuclear cell transfer, benefited from a male imprinted genome.
The issue of cloning and embryonic stem cell research intersect when it comes to possible uses of cloned tissue as a source of stem cells.
We had cloning issues, stem cell issues.
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BioTransplant (nasdaq: BTRN - news - people ), another company that hoped to use cloning in embryonic stem-cell technology, has fared far worse.
"Somatic cell nuclear transfer does not relate to cloning, and the people who call it therapeutic cloning are creating a lot of confusion, because it is not cloning at all, and it certainly is not reproductive cloning, " Specter said.
Last month, Prof Wilmut announced that he was abandoning the cloning of human embryos in stem cell research in favour of a new technique developed in Japan.
The Vatican has over recent decades issued blanket condemnations of artificial methods of birth control, in-vitro fertilization, therapeutic and reproductive cloning, and human embryonic stem cell research.
While cloning is just one part of stem cell research, it has been touted as having enormous potential as a cure for all manner of diseases.
The citation for his knighthood credits Prof Wilmut with "revolutionising" biology through the cloning technique which underpins the science of stem cell technology.
The best-known of the new knights is Professor Wilmut, who is said to have revolutionised biology by successfully pioneering the cloning technique that underpins the science of stem cell technology.
The Roslin Institute's Dr. Ian Wilmut, who pioneered the technique that cloned Dolly from a single mammary cell from an adult sheep, said that while human cloning is theoretically possible, he saw no reason to do so.
Other proponents of stem cell research reject using clones for such purposes, but the potential has led opponents of embryonic stem cell research to warn that federal funding could lead to wider cloning experimentation.
During the debate public health minister Yvette Cooper made an impassioned plea for scientists to be given the go-ahead for stem cell research, denying it was a "slippery slope" to human cloning.
The basic techniques of human embryo creation that Dr. Edwards pioneered form the technical foundation of in vitro fertilization, human cloning techniques, genetic screening of human embryos and embryonic-stem-cell research.
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His role in cloning Dolly the sheep, the world's first clone from an adult cell, led to an OBE in 1999 and he has been elected to five scientific academies worldwide.
His role at the Roslin Institute in cloning Dolly the sheep, the world's first clone from an adult cell, led to an OBE in 1999 and he has been elected a fellow of five scientific academies worldwide.
The House on Tuesday will debate two measures on cloning, which some observers see as a dress rehearsal for the coming debate over embryonic stem cell research.
Reproductive cloning, which created Dolly the sheep in 1997, involves transferring the nucleus of an adult cell into an egg, giving the resulting embryo a full set of genes without the normal sperm-meets-egg fertilisation step.
Less successful was the cloning of the gaur, a species of ox found in south Asia, by researchers at Advanced Cell Technology, a biotech company in Worcester, Massachusetts: the clone died of infection days after birth.
There is no law against private stem cell research in the US, but Mr Bush has called for an international United Nations ban on all human cloning, prompting ire from a number of countries which allow the process under regulated conditions for research purposes.
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