Ian Wilmut Rejects Human Cloning!
Well, this is some unexpected good news: Ian Wilmut is turning his back on human cloning.
Wilmut has had several positions on this morally contentious and volatile issue. In his book The Second Creation, Wilmut wrote that he would not engage in human cloning. Then, he supported reproductive cloning, at least in some circumstances. He also obtained a license in the UK to attempt to clone human embryos, suggested that ESCR be conducted on dying patients in what I perceive to be an unethical manner, but now has decided he won't participate in the human cloning project. Whew. From the story in the Telegraph:
Prof Ian Wilmut's decision to turn his back on "therapeutic cloning", just days after US researchers announced a breakthrough in the cloning of primates, will send shockwaves through the scientific establishment.Cell regession is one of the "alternative methods" that President Bush recently ordered the NIH to potentially fund, amidst great derision from Big Biotech and the bioethics establishment. But who is laughing now? Ian Wilmut, of all people, thinks it--and not cloning--is the wave of the future.He and his team made headlines around the world in 1997 when they unveiled Dolly, born July of the year before. But now he has decided not to pursue a licence to clone human embryos, which he was awarded just two years ago, as part of a drive to find new treatments for the devastating degenerative condition, Motor Neuron disease.
Prof Wilmut, who works at Edinburgh University, believes a rival method pioneered in Japan has better potential for making human embryonic cells which can be used to grow a patient's own cells and tissues for a vast range of treatments, from treating strokes to heart attacks and Parkinson's, and will be less controversial than the Dolly method, known as "nuclear transfer."
His announcement could mark the beginning of the end for therapeutic cloning, on which tens of millions of pounds have been spent worldwide over the past decade.
Let us fervently hope that the writer of the article is right and that Wilmut's "Dear John" letter does mark the end of therapeutic cloning. And it well might. It seems to me that Wilmut would not have rejected his license unless he were convinced that cloning is just not going to work or be sufficiently efficient--given the human egg dearth--to be more than a novelty.
This is heartening news. Wilmut has no moral objection to human cloning. But perhaps he has looked into the tea leaves and made a pragmatic decision that bodes well for the human race.
Labels: Ian Wilmut. Refusing to Clone
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:35 PM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
Yes, but even those cells derived from this new technique will offer the potential for human life, given the right location.
After all aren't you a proponent that location shouldnt matter in the moral conduct of what research is correct.
Essentially anytime a pluripotent cell exists by synthetic means regarless if ther is an egg or a womb to host the cells you still consider it murder, how is this any different?
How does your stance not paint you into a corner of never using pluripotent cells due to their potential. After ESC on has potential as well unless you implant into a womb.
Your essentially dealing with the same cells, but in this instance your jsut relieved they arent developing in an egg in a petri dish.
Dark: You don't know what you are talking about. You could implant plutipotent cells into wombs for a million years and never have one pregnancy. Stem cells are just cells, they are not embryos, they are not organisms.
Destroying cells isn't wrong. I do it every morning when I brush my teeth. What I object to is creating human life for use in research, either through fertilization or cloning, or using human life as a mere resource. I have never said it was "murder."
A cell is just a cell. Adult stem cell research is wonderful and ethical. If this works in humans--and I believe it will--our own skin or other cells could become potent medicine of great efficacy. Nothing wrong with that and very much right!
I think I do know what I'm talking about Wesley.
I'm always open to more facts though, so lets compare procedures and find out where your beef with cloning really lies.
Lets make sure were talking apples to apples here first. Cloning can be representative of a variety of regenerative/reproductive processes both natural and synthetic, correct?
When you brushed your teeth this morning and some skin cells died, new cells were cloned naturally by multipotent cells as part of the regenerative process to keep you mouth intact, correct?
A man made process, one you rally against, SCNT could use the same skin cells that were in your mouth and combine with an enucleated egg to produce Pluripotent stem cells AKA Embryonic Stem Cells in a petri dish. Those are the cells scientist want cultivated to use for research and resulting therapies, correct?
Now there is a new technology from Japan, that says it can generate pluripotent stem cells from just a skin cell, that you are happy about, correct?
Please tell me if I am off base on any of my assumptions so far.
In the instance of SCNT you have removed semen and instead use a donor (skin)cell to provide all genetic information to create the cells inside of an enucleated egg. You refer to its ES Cells as an individual human, so why shouldn't you be able to remove the egg also and still refer to its ES Cells as human? After all the egg is not contributing to the makeup of the "person" it does nothing more than transport the "human" to the womb.
In fact you could extract the ES cells from one Enucleated egg and put it into another egg just to prove the point that the egg itself contributes nothing to the makeup of the organism you consider a "person".
Thus if you can take a skin cell and coax it to produce pluripotent stem cells with this new process, theoretically you could place those ES Cells into an environment which would form another "person".
As you are so focused on potential then how do you deny that brushing your teeth could deplete skin cells which could be coaxed to produce ES Cells, that could be put in an enucleated egg, that could be implanted in the womb, that could be carried to term is any more justifiable than the methods and progress that Science is currently seeking using SCNT or other future regenerative medicines?
So what is it? Are we destroying potential people when we brush our teeth, or are you finally willing to admit that intent and location play a major factor in the possibility of human existence..
I'll have a bit of respect and listen to your response before I further assert how you don't know what your talking about...
This is where you don't know what you are talking about:?A man made process, one you rally against, SCNT could use the same skin cells that were in your mouth and combine with an enucleated egg to produce Pluripotent stem cells AKA Embryonic Stem Cells in a petri dish. Those are the cells scientist want cultivated to use for research and resulting therapies, correct?"
Nope. It makes an embryo, not stem cells in a petri dish. That embryo must be destroyed to derive the stem cells. And that is why many proposals outlaw implantation.
As I said, you could implant stem cells until the cows come home and never have a baby. But implant a cloned embyro, and that might be a different story.
You do know the difference between an embryo and a cell I assume?
OK I'll play along Wesley.
What is the difference between ES Cells made via SCNT and an Embryo made via SCNT?
Hmm... well, ES cells consist of a cluster of undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells.
An embryo derived via SCNT contains - ta da - a cluster of undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells, Plus an enucleated egg, which I explained to you contains no DNA. It is a hollowed out shell that contributes nothing to the potential "human" involved, as all that informtion is contained in the ES Cells.
What about this do you dispute?
No. Your problem is identifying an embryo as merely a cluster of stem cells, as if that is the same thing as the stem cells themselves.
An embryo is far more than that. It has a genetic makeup that begins expressing and developing within hours of the completion of fertilization. It is an integrated organism that given the proper environment, develops and grows toward maturity. It is not the same thing at all as just a cluster of stem cells. It is not a cell line, it is a distinct human organism, with its own unique gentetic makeup. A stem cell is merely a cell. That is all, whether made via SCNT or fertilization.
It is like saying that your liver cell is the same thing as you. It ain't.
I'll try...
"A man made process, one you rally against, SCNT could use the same skin cells that were in your mouth and combine with an enucleated egg to produce Pluripotent stem cells AKA Embryonic Stem Cells in a petri dish."
Dark, those skin cells must be combined with an egg (as you have written) in order to become...wait for it...AN EMBRYO. Therefore, a skin cell is NOT equivalent to an embryo, as you seem to allege; if anything, a skin cell is equivalent to a sperm cell, because that, too, must be combined with an egg to become an embryonic human being. Therefore, the whole "skin cell = embryo" tack that the pro-ESCR lobby loves to trot out is blatantly false. SCNT, as has been explained, does NOT create mere "stem cells," but rather an embryonic human being, who is then destroyed to OBTAIN those cells. Quite a difference.
Bmmg39,
If you reread the report it says that
Embryonic (aka pluripotent) stem cells have been derived from only a skin cell.
the skin cell contains all 46 chromosomes, so it is not akin to sperm, which obviously only has 23 chromosomes.
The skin cell and resulting pluripotent cells contain all of the DNA info, the egg has nothing to do with it other than as a carrier if you were seeking implantation (which no one is).
What egg it is in does not matter to the resulting organism.
In your book if the ES cells are inserted into any random egg it is suddenly a person in a dish. Taking a pipette and removing the ES cells then those cells no longer constitute a person. But if you then insert the cells from the pipette back into an enucleated egg you suddenly have the same personhood again. Remove the cells from the egg, no person, put the cells in the egg a totally different egg, person, eehhh.
I find this mental gymnastics absolutely ridiculous!
It is or isn't a person, with or without the shell of any random egg!
And if it is a person outside the egg then every time a cell in your body dies you would consider it abortion, again ridiculous.
Dark Swan: And gravity doesn't cause the apple to fall from the tree.
I don't have time to keep correcting your bad biology. The egg matters a great deal in SCNT. Without it, it can't be done. The mydochondrial DNA is important, too, which comes from the egg. SCNT works (in theory, it hasn't been done in humans) because the full chromosome count makes the fused egg act as if fertilized.
Again, a cell is a cell. An embryo is an embryo. And this breakthrough, now announced all over the world, destroys the human cloning imperative.
Good news all the way arond.
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