>    Subject: ARTICLE: Company says it will try to turn human cells into
source for stem cells
>    From: Murray Charters <[log in to unmask]>
>    Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 06:33:30 -0700

Published: Thursday, July 12, 2001
Embryo cloning experiments start Company says it will try to turn
human cells into source for stem cells
Washington Post

After more than a year of quiet and careful preparation, scientists
at a Massachusetts biotechnology company have started a series
of experiments aimed at creating cloned human embryos
or embryo-like entities from which embryonic stem cells
could be derived.

Confirmation of the effort late Wednesday by scientists
and ethicists affiliated with the company -- Advanced Cell
Technology of Worcester -- constitutes the first open
acknowledgment by any research group in this country
that it is attempting to create cloned human entities. If the
Massachusetts experiment is successful, it would be the
first time that scientists have used cloning technology
to turn a single human cell into a source of stem cells -- though
whether it would actually be an embryo with all the potential
to grow into a person remains a matter of scientific and semantic
debate.

As of Wednesday night, scientists were still conducting the
work and would not report whether they had been successful.

"Scientific results should be published in scientific journals,"
said Michael West, the company's president and chief executive,
who discussed the effort in response to queries.

West said he wanted to open a serious national discussion
about the ethics of such work. The company is opposed
to the work being used in any way to try to clone a person,
he added.

On the basis of preparatory work with animal cells, company
officials said they believed the cloning effort would lead to the
most practical and ethical means of producing highly coveted
stem cells, which hold great promise for the treatment
of a variety of conditions.

The statements from company scientists and ethicists came
just one day after researchers in Virginia made the controversial
announcement that they had harvested stem cells from embryos
they had created solely for research, as opposed to using spare
fertility clinic embryos slated for destruction as several ethics
groups have recommended. In the Virginia work, the embryos
were made not by cloning but by traditional in vitro fertilization.

Experts said the Massachusetts effort would put  pressure
on President Bush, who is considering how to settle a debate
over whether federal funds should be used for  research
on embryonic stem cells.

SOURCE: PioneerPlanet / St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/news/nat_docs/83903.htm

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