Stem cell breakthrough may treat disease
Updated on 19 May 2005
For the first time, a team of scientists in South Korea have succeeded in harvesting patient-specific stem cells -using cloned human embryos. Tom Clarke reports.
It is the first real proof that cloning could be used to treat disease
It is the promise of cloning a human to make stem-cells. Cells that are perfectly matched to the patient, to treat or cure their disease. Today, scientists delivered on that promise.
Professor Woo Suk Hwang's team of South Korean and American scientists have solved the first stumbling block in turning stem-cells into a cure: ensuring they will not be rejected by the person they are meant to treat.
Gerald Schatten from the University of Pittsburgh said: "Perhaps liver donations would not be required but you could put in the patient's own cells to repair the damage.
"It will help kidney disorders, heart diseases, lung disease, muscle diseases, perhaps strokes. Theoretically this will be bigger than discoveries of vaccines and antibiotics."
So how does the technology work? the first stage uses basic cloning techniques. An egg is isolated, and the genetic code within it removed. The donor's DNA is then inserted into the egg, which is activated by an electric pulse.
The cell then begins to divide, eventually growing into an embryo. From that stem cells are harvested and then inserted into the body or grown into any tissue, blood, bone, or muscle.
The first time this was done, scientists only used the DNA from the woman who supplied the egg
Now they have done it with donors of different sexes, ages - both sick and well - the resulting stem cells perfectly match their DNA suggesting no risk of rejection if put into the body.
Hwang's lab at Seoul National University is now the undisputed world leader in human cloning research. It is a standard other scientists especially those in Britain will want to follow if they are to reap the benefits that stem cells could provide.
Stephen Minger from King's College London, told Channel 4 News: "For this to really translate into something meaningful it has to be done in more labs than just Professor Wang's. It has to be done in the UK and the US."
But opponents to human cloning for stem cell research do not get much more powerful than George Bush. It was in the face of this opposition - largely fuelled by religious concerns about the sanctity of life - that a quadriplegic Christopher Reeve lobbied congress for federally funded human cloned stem cell research in the US.
If he had lived a few months longer he'd have seen two bills vying for votes in the senate. One would ban cloning outright, the other see that it gets more funding.
Ethicist Julian Savulescu, from Oxford University, told C4 News: "The lesson from this research is that we need to liberalise our laws across the world on therapeutic cloning to facilitate and bring these treatments to the bedside quicker."
To cure disease, scientists still have figure out how to turn these stem cells into healthy tissues - no easy feat. But by putting human cloned stem cells into the realms of reality - today's research only accelerates that endeavour, and the ethical debate surrounding it.
Professor of neurology at King's College London told Channel 4 News the UK would work with the Koreans on it.
"Before we had the idea that this approach was a possibility, now it is proven that we can generate cells that are identical to our own cells.
"A lot of very strict scientific procedure has to take place before these cells are introduced, we know what we need to do, we believe it is achievable."
He said any disease with a degree of tissue injury like heart disease or brain injuries can be treated.
"We are only two to three years away from using it."
