The stem cell research is likely to enter a new stage when the Stemagen Corporation, based in La Jolla, California, claims that it used cloning technology to make five human embryos. This means that hope is on the horizon that they will be able to make matched stem cells for patients.

The corporation has claimed to have used the same technology of creating Dolly, the famous cloned sheep in 1996. Stemagen developed the embryos by using skin cells from two adult men who work at the IVF center. By using SCNT, or somatic cell nuclear transfer, Stemagen was able to hollow out an egg cell and inject the nucleus of a cell from the donor. The scientists verified that the embryos were exact clones.

Robin Lovell-Badge of Britain’s Medical Research Council’s division of stem cell biology noted,

“This is the most successful description so far of the use of the cloning techniques with purely human material. However, it is still a long way from achieving the goal of obtaining embryonic stem cells.”

Some scientists, government officials and powerful groups have opposed the stem cell research. More importantly, President George W. Bush in the United States, remain staunchly opposed to stem cell research or the federal funding of it. This has hampered stem cell research in America.

In Britain, Parliament is pushing the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill through the ranks that would deny scientists access to tissue banks. While a group of 29 scientists, including three Nobel laureates, sent a letter to the government to protest the donor consent requirement for the use of cloned embryonic stem cells because most patients donated before it was possible to clone, the new law seems likely to pass.

Source: HealthNews