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New Orleans.Net From hard science to harder ethics, from sheep to people, cloning experts gather By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID The Associated Press 8/7/01 12:54 AM WASHINGTON (AP) -- Since the day in 1997 that scientists in Scotland announced the successful cloning of a sheep named Dolly, the fear of -- or hope for -- human cloning has been a major focus of discussion, and of legislation in many countries banning the practice. Citing widespread confusion about human cloning and the complex ethical issues it raises, the National Academy of Sciences is bringing an international panel of scientists together Tuesday for a discussion of the technology and where it may be heading. Meanwhile, debate swirls around the potential for human cloning. At least three researchers scheduled to attend the meeting have said they plan human cloning experiments. Dr. Severino Antinori of Rome drew a fresh rebuke from Italian medical authorities on Monday, who warned that he risked losing his right to practice in Italy because of his plans to clone humans. Antinori, who has repeatedly discussed plans to begin human cloning this year, told La Stampa newspaper that 1,300 couples in America, mostly in Kentucky, and 200 in Italy are candidates for his research -- and that he plans to start cloning embryos in November. "Ours will be an experiment of therapeutic cloning for those couples who have no hope of having children," La Stampa quoted Antinori as saying. Because cloning would be illegal in Italy, he has said he would do the work in an unnamed Mediterranean country. Joining Antinori at the session are researchers Panayiotis Zavos and Brigette Boisselier. Zavos, who runs a fertility clinic in Lexington, Ky., and heads an organization called The Andrology Institute, also has said he wants to begin cloning a human by the end of this year. The Food and Drug Administration has prohibited human cloning in the United States, however. Boisselier, in June, accepted an agreement with the FDA promising not to do human cloning experiments without agency approval. The agreement was signed after the FDA inspected her lab. The agency declined to say where it was located. On Sunday, Mark Hunt, a West Virginia lawyer, said he had spent less than $500,000 to set up a lab for Boisselier in Nitro, W.Va., but now has changed his mind about asking her to clone his late son. Boisselier is scientific director of Clonaid, which advertises cloning services on its Web site for fees starting at $200,000. It was founded in 1997 by a French race car driver who changed his name to Rael and started the Raelian Movement, which claims that life on Earth was created by extraterrestrial scientists. Among the debates over cloning is the issue of creating embryos to harvest stem cells for use in medical research. The House of Representatives has voted to ban human cloning for any purpose. President Bush is contemplating whether to allow use of government funds in embryonic stem cell research, including such research that does not involve cloning. On the other hand, in England, Parliament voted in January to permit stem cell research on human embryos and also made Britain the first nation to specifically allow cloning to create embryos for that purpose. Stem cells are the master cells found in early stage embryos. They evolve into all the different tissues of the body and doctors hope to treat many diseases by directing the cells to develop into needed implants. Cloning is reproducing without mating a male sperm and female egg. In sexual reproduction, the offspring get half its genes from each parent. In cloning, the embryo gets all genes from one individual. In Dolly's case, for example, all of her genes came from a 6-year-old adult ewe. Researchers removed an egg from one ewe and took out the nucleus, the master control center that includes the genes. From the 6-year-old ewe, the researchers then took a mature udder cell and removed the nucleus, including the genes. The nucleus was put into the denucleated egg from the first ewe. Lab manipulation caused the egg and transplanted nucleus to develop into an embryo. This was then placed into the uterus of a third ewe, which later gave birth to Dolly, who had all the same genes as the 6-year-old, thus becoming a clone of that sheep. However, she wasn't an instant carbon copy. To begin with, the "parent" sheep was six years older and they were raised in different environments. ------ On the Net: National Academy of Sciences: http://www.nas.edu/ SOURCE: New Orleans / Associated Press http://www.nola.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0411_BC_Cloning&&news&newsflash-washington * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn