Not All Animals Are Equal: Some Clone Better Than Others

The announcement on November 25^th by Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) of Worchester, MA, USA that it had cloned a human embryo with the view of developing the methodology for creating pluripotent stem cells which would be genetically identical to the contributor of the cell nucleus and thereby avoiding rejection of any replacement tissue derived from the stem cells brought forth shocked indignation from a number of quarters throughout the world. It's not the object of this item to enter the moral debate surrounding the issue of human cloning for the purpose of obtaining embryonic stem cells, but TFW can at least point out a couple of home truths.

 First, just to address the question of potential profitability, the cloning to gestation of a human is a scientific, commercial, and legal minefield of such proportions that for all practical purposes it can be dismissed. It's not going to happen. It's tough enough these days for obstetricians to afford insurance to deliver babies derived though normal fertilization, for a scientist to get cover for a human cloning attempt... well it'd probably be cheaper to book a joy ride on the space shuttle.
    Much more to the point are attempts such as that by Advanced Cell Technology to produce embryonic stem cells genetically identical to an individual in need of tissue and organ replacement. That's where the real money is, and that's where the cogent moral and legal issues lie and will be faced. That said, the fact remains that ACT's announcement was premature to say the least; they have got nowhere near obtaining embryonic stem cells. As Alan Colman, a member of the team that cloned Dolly the sheep points out, before embryonic stem cells can be obtained, human embryos have to become a hollow cell ball (a blastocyst, right) and ACT has got no further than a group of six cells (left, cross section).

Perhaps more critically is the difficulty in getting even that far. In a recent article the New York Times' Gina Kolata leads with "In Cloning, Failure Far Exceeds Success" and relates the tribulations of "Dr. Tanja Dominko [who] went to [the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center] with high hopes that she would soon be cloning monkeys. The lab was generously financed with federal grants, there were plenty of monkeys to work with and most experts thought that since Dolly the sheep had just been created by cloning, monkeys would not be far behind.
    "She left [after three years], with a cloning portfolio that she calls her gallery of horrors. After about 300 attempts, the best she got was a placenta with no fetus."  Now Dr. Dominko works for ACT and so far the researchers there have got no further than the six cell stage before while most eggs died without dividing at all.  Dr. Dominko's most interesting finding was the complexity of detail. Any one of the extraordinary number of operations required to produce the required blastocyst could obviate its formation, thereby precluding obtaining medically useful stem cells. Most researchers in the field have concluded that routine animal cloning or growing human embryo clones long enough to extract stem cells with a genetic makeup identical to the recipient could be years if not decades away. Even in those animals such as sheep and cows where cloning has worked it looks much as though chance played a significant role.  They haven't anything like tight control of the system. So far in dogs, cats and humans for example, they've got essentially nowhere. If you can't yet create a surviving six celled clone, a human Dolly is a long way off even as a possibility.

Given the time span it would seem that the time is available for thoughtful and thorough consideration of the sorts of controls that should be exercised to allow an ethical balance to be found to accommodate moral judgments with regard to the use of embryonic tissue for therapeutic procedures for prolonging life. 
 

Alex Reisner
The Funneled Web