An extremely exciting breakthrough was announced on the 18th of June at a meeting of the International Society of Stem Cell Research. The meeting, held in Cairns, Australia focused on an Oregon team’s discovery of stem cells cloned from the Rhesus (Macaca mulatta) monkey. The research team from the Oregon National Primate Research Centre, situated in Beaverton, employed a method of cloning called SCNT or Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. This method is where an egg cell is removed and replaced with a donor nucleus which then forms an early embryo. From this embryo stem cells have been extracted and scientists can learn from this new information, create more stem lines and begin to understand the complexities of diseases and illnesses that prior to this breakthrough remained difficult to treat or cure.

First attempts at cloning were marred by the use of ultra-violet light, which was damaging the embryos before stem cells could be extracted. The switch to polarized light enabled scientists to visualize the eggs interior. Team member Shoukhrat Mitalipor used skin cells from a ten year old Rhesus monkey for the first successful cloning, giving renewed hope to scientists worldwide about using the same methods and techniques on human cells. Eventually cloning using the SCNT method could theoretically allow scientists to clone embryonic cells to help treat specific diseases like multiple sclerosis, cardiac illnesses and spinal damage. By encouraging embryonic cells to replace damaged nerves, blood or heart cells (therapeutic or regenerative cloning) victims of spinal injuries may well walk again and heart transplants may become an antiquated technique to prolong life.



Called Liberation Biology, a title penned by science writer Ronald Bailey, cloning and stem cell research has the ability to free the world’s population of many diseases, including illnesses that spoil the average quality of life a person deserves, like diabetes. Cells can be trained or encouraged to become insulin producing, the body therefore producing it’s own medicine. Ethical and moral viewpoints aside, scientists are demanding to go further with this research and this finding in the recent experiments brings the world closer to the first completely cloned adult primate. Remember, the primate group includes monkeys, apes and Homo sapiens.

Whilst some countries have already passed strict guidelines for scientists and researchers to follow when embarking on this type of experimentation, the conflict between science and religion will always make cloning and stem cell research a hot topic. Those opposed to this research believe that since a blastocyst (hollow ball of cells) is actually a very early embryo, it contains a soul and therefore be sacrilegious to extract stem cells from it. However some scientists counter that it cannot see, feel or hear at this early stage and accordingly could not be termed as a person. Although encumbered by strict guidelines and policies scientists are finding themselves optimistic about the future of the cloned man. Says team member Don Wolf, “It’s proof of principle for human therapeutic cloning.”