Human Cloning Urged in Cell Research

In calling for Britain to amend its ban on human cloning, the government-commissioned panel said scientists should be allowed to create cloned embryos to study the manufacture of cells and tissues for transplant.

The government accepted the panel's recommendation, led by Britain's chief medical officer, and said it would initiate legislation to implement it as soon as possible.

Ethical concerns have tempered many countries' consideration of cloning technology.

"We're talking about research at this stage, not treatment," cautioned Dr. Liam Donaldson, Britain's chief medical officer.

The key benefit of cloning for transplants comes from what are known as "stem cells" – the parent cells of all the human body's cells, which go on to form most of its cells and tissues.

An embryo is essentially a ball of stem cells that evolves into a fetus when the stem cells start specializing to create a nervous system, spine and other features. Scientists hope that by extracting the stem cells from the embryo before they start to specialize, their growth can be directed in a lab to become any desired cell or tissue type.

"There is major, major medical potential, but we need medical research to see whether this potential can be realized," Donaldson said.

The promise is that one day it will be possible to grow neurons to replace nerve cells in a brain killed by Parkinson's disease, skin to repair burns, and pancreatic cells to produce insulin for diabetics.

Scientists would create a clone of a sick person by taking one of the patient's cells. When the embryo is a few days old, they then would extract the stem cells, which would be genetically identical to the patient's and therefore theoretically overcome problems of transplant rejection.

Transplants often fail because the body recognizes the donated organ as foreign and uses the immune system to fight it as if it were an invader.

Since human stem cells were isolated in a lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the first time in 1998, advances in the field have come rapidly.

Scientists have been able to extract stem cells from embryos and grow them until they become sorted into muscle cells and neurons.

They also have been able to make bone marrow cells turn into liver cells, offering hope that cells from adults can be made to regress and redirect themselves to form different types, without the need to create an embryo.

"That is the ultimate goal," Donaldson said. "Scientists believe research in embryonic stem cells is vital to getting that breakthrough."

Britain allows scientists to conduct research on embryos up to 14 days old for certain disorders, but does not allow them to be created by cloning.

In its report published Wednesday, the expert panel proposed keeping the 14-day rule and introducing new legislation to reinforce the nation's ban on creating cloned babies.

Cloning should be allowed only if there were no other way to conduct the research, the report said.

The prospect of human cloning is contentious because, while it is widely recognized that developing the technique could lead to the prevention and cure of scores of diseases, opponents say there are ethical issues involved in creating embryos for the manufacture of what they refer to as "spare body parts."

Opponents were quick to denounce the report's recommendations.

"It is a further trivialization of human life. It exploits human beings at the most vulnerable stage of their lives," said a statement for the group Life, which opposes abortion and cloning. "We do not need human cloning. We are on the brink of a major revolution in medicine using adult stem cells."

The vote on the legislation is expected to take place in Parliament this fall. Individual members will be allowed to vote according to their consciences, instead of being made to follow their party's line.