Human Cloning

Human Cloning

“The secret of DNA's success is that it carries information like that of a computer program, but far more advanced. Since experience shows that intelligence is the only presently acting cause of information, we can infer that intelligence is the best explanation for the information in DNA.”
― Jonathan Wells, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism And Intelligent Design

Cybrid
English Etymology From cytoplasmic + hybrid
Noun cybrid (plural cybrids)

(genetics) An artificial hybrid cell produced by introducing nuclear material from one organism into a cell (of the same or different species) from which the nucleus has been removed

Panayiotis Michael Zavos:is a Greek Cypriot biologist from Cyprus. He is also an American citizen who currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Cloning
2001 -Professor Zavos, Severino Antinori, and Dr. Avi Ben-Abraham announce they are fully prepared to perform therapeutic human cloning.

2002 -Zavos declared the year 2002 as "the year of human clones".

2003 - On 20 May 2003, he announced the creation of a cloned human embryo.

2004 -On 17 January 2004, from London, he announced the creation and transfer of a cloned embryo, according to news reports. During the announcement, Zavos presented the first evidence of the creation and transfer of a human cloned embryo for reproductive purposes.

A cytoplasmic hybrid (or cybrid, a portmanteau of the two words) is a eukaryotic cell line produced by the fusion of a whole cell with a cytoplast. Cytoplasts are enucleated cells. This enucleation can be effected by simultaneous application of centrifugal forceand treatment of the cell with an agent that disrupts the cytoskeleton. A special case of cybrid formation involves the use of rho-zero cells as the whole cell partner in the fusion. Rho-zero cells are cells which have been depleted of their own mitochondrial DNAby prolonged incubation with ethidium bromide, a chemical which inhibits mitochondrial DNA replication. The rho-zero cells do retain mitochondria and can grow in rich culture medium with certain supplements. They do retain their own nuclear genome. A cybrid is then a hybrid cell which combines the nuclear genome from one source with the mitochondrial genome from another source. Using this powerful tool, it is possible to dissociate the genetic contribution of the mitochondrial genome from that of the nuclear genome.

How Human Cloning Will Work

Creating a Human Clone.
In January 2001, a small consortium of scientists led by Panayiotis Zavos, a former University of Kentucky professor, and Italian researcher Severino Antinori said that they planned to clone a human in two years [source: Kirby]. At about the same time, news surfaced about an American couple who planned to pay $500,000 to Las Vegas-based company Clonaid for a clone of their deceased infant daughter [source: Clonaid]. Neither venture produced documented success.

Then, in 2004, South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk announced that he and his research team had cloned 11 human embryos for the purpose of extractingstem cells. However, after reviewing his work, a panel at Seoul National University concluded that his findings were false. There hasn't been any confirmed human clone created to date. When discussing cloning in the sense of doing so to make a duplicate of an organism, we refer to it as reproductive cloning.

Critics slam new cloning research

The research "will lead inexorably to cloning to produce a live born child," said bioethicist O. Carter Snead, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic University in Indiana.

The new study used techniques similar to those that created Dolly, the cloned sheep, in Scotland in 1996. Scientists at Oregon Health & Science University and the Oregon National Primate Research Center slipped an adult skin cell into a human egg whose genetic material had been removed. After several innovations that allowed them to succeed where other scientists had failed for 15 years, they got the egg to divide and reproduce much like a fertilized egg, even though no sperm had gone near it.

The process is called therapeutic cloning because it created embryonic stem cells, which hold promise for treating a number of degenerative diseases, such as macular degeneration, and injuries.

But to critics, the result was an abomination.

Embryonic stem cells: Advance in medical human cloning

The cloned embryos were used as a source of stem cells, which can make new heart muscle, bone, brain tissue or any other type of cell in the body. The study, published in the journal Cell, used methods like those that produced Dolly the sheep in the UK. However, researchers say other sources of stem cells may be easier, cheaper and less controversial. Opponents say it is unethical to experiment on human embryos and have called for a ban. Stem cells are one of the great hopes for medicine. Being able to create new tissue might be able to heal the damage caused by a heart attack or repair a severed spinal cord. There are already trials taking place using stem cells taken from donated embryos to restore people's sight.

Human 'cloning' makes embryonic stem cells

A form of cloning has been used to create personalised embryonic stem cells in humans, say researchers. Genetic material was taken from an adult skin cell and transferred into a human egg. This was grown to produce an early embryo. Stem cells have huge potential in medicine as they can transform into any other cell type in the body.

However, the stem cells formed contained chromosomes from both the adult and the egg cells. The technique used - somatic cell nuclear transfer - shot to fame in 1997 when Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, was unveiled to the world. A South Korean scientist, Hwang Woo-suk, had claimed to have created stem cells from cloned human embryos, but was found to have faked the evidence.

UK government backs three-person IVF

The UK looks set to become the first country to allow the creation of babies using DNA from three people, after the government backed the IVF technique.

It will produce draft regulations later this year and the procedure could be offered within two years.

Experts say three-person IVF could eliminate debilitating and potentially fatal mitochondrial diseases that are passed on from mother to child.

Scientists have devised two techniques that allow them to take the genetic information from the mother and place it into the egg of a donor with healthy mitochondria.

Scientists clone human embryos to make stem cells

In what is being described as a "significant milestone" for medicine, the team from Oregon Health and Science University successfully used a technique which utilised a human skin cell and a woman's egg to produce an embryo which was a genetic copy of the original skin cell.

The resulting embryos were then used as a source of stem cells, which can be used to create specialised tissue cells for transplant operations.

But scientists say they do not think the technique could be used to clone humans for reproductive purposes.

I've cloned a human: Extraordinary claims of a doctor who 'has implanted embryos into four women'

A controversial doctor has claimed to have cloned human embryos and transferred them to four women prepared to give birth to the first cloned babies.

Fertility specialist Panayiotis Zavos sensationally broke the sacred taboo of human individuality by cloning 14 embryos and placing 11 of them into the wombs of four women, he told The Independent.

A British woman was alleged to be among the one single and three married patients who were said to be happy to become pregnant with the first cloned embryos specifically created for the purpose of human reproduction.

The other women came from the United States and an unidentified country in the Middle East.

A documentary-maker told The Independent that he filmed the process as evidence that cloning took place, with the consent of the women.

The process, which is illegal in Britain and many other countries, was probably carried out in a secret laboratory in the Middle East, where cloning is not banned.

Fertility expert: 'I can clone a human being'

Little Cady died aged 10 in a car crash in the US. Her blood cells were frozen and sent to Dr Zavos, who fused them with cow eggs to create cloned human-animal hybrid embryos. These hybrid embryos were developed in the test tube and used to study the cloning process, but were not transferred into a human womb, despite Cady's mother saying she would sanction this if there was a chance the clone of her little girl could be born. Dr Zavos said he would never transfer hybrid animal clones into the human womb.
However, cells from Cady's "embryo" could in the future be extracted from the frozen hybrid embryo and fused with an empty human egg with its nucleus removed. This double cloning process could produce a human embryo that Dr Zavos said could be transferred into the womb to produce Cady's clone.

Human liver grown inside a mouse

A human liver has been grown inside a mouse, giving hope that patients could receive new organs created from their own skin cells within a decade.

The breakthrough would eradicate donor waiting lists and the risk of the body rejecting a replacement organ.

Japanese scientists used stem cells to create liver ‘buds’ within mice which grew into a piece of human tissue measuring 5mm.

It is hoped the work carried out by researchers at Yokohama City University could also be used to grow other replacement organs.

150 human animal hybrids grown in UK labs: Embryos have been produced secretively for the past three years

Last night a campaigner against the excesses of medical research said he was disgusted that scientists were ‘dabbling in the grotesque’.
Figures seen by the Daily Mail show that 155 ‘admixed’ embryos, containing both human and animal genetic material, have been created since the introduction of the 2008 Human Fertilisation Embryology Act.

This legalised the creation of a variety of hybrids, including an animal egg fertilised by a human sperm; ‘cybrids’, in which a human nucleus is implanted into an animal cell; and ‘chimeras’, in which human cells are mixed with animal embryos.

Scientists hit back at Catholic church over 'cybrids'

Scientists are responding angrily to claims by the Catholic church that a new bill currently before the UK Parliament "will allow scientists to create embryos that are half human, half animal".

Catholic churches across England and Wales read a statement making this claim to their congregations this week, and calling on Catholics to protest. British scientists have responded angrily that there are no such plans.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill due to be discussed later in 2008 in the UK House of Commons changes the regulations governing assisted reproduction and embryo research. It is strongly backed by the government and expected to become law next year.

Human-Animal Cybrids

Over the past year, a major ethical debate has raged in the United Kingdom over whether scientists should be allowed to use animal eggs in their attempts to create cloned human embryonic stem cells. Scientists say that these cells could lead to the development of the first-ever human-cell models of complex genetic diseases and, eventually, new tissue-replacement therapies. Lack of human eggs has presented an enormous obstacle: eggs are collected via a lengthy and potentially painful and risky procedure that few women are willing to undergo.

Readily available animal eggs could fill that gap. Rather than inserting the DNA of a human cell into a donated human egg, scientists would insert human DNA into a cow or rabbit egg and then collect stem cells from the resulting embryos. The DNA of these cells would be overwhelmingly human, with a tiny percentage of animal DNA from the egg. To date, only one group, in China, has successfully generated human stem cells with this approach, but several groups around the world are trying to repeat it.

edible pharmacological crop HIV vaccines

ProdiGene receives grant for development of edible AIDS vaccine

Research on development of an edible vaccine for AIDS produced from transgenic plants will be funded through an Innovation Grant from the National Institutes of Health and conducted by ProdiGene, Texas. The grant was funded at the maximum amount for a two-year period. "Our goal is to develop transgenic plants that have been genetically enhanced to produce different types of proteins for edible vaccines," explained Dr Joseph Jilka, grant recipient and vice president-product development of ProdiGene. "If successfully developed, global populations will be able to be vaccinated against the AIDS virus safely and economically by eating gene- enhanced corn products."

Edible HIV vaccine breakthrough

Maize genetically modified to contain a key protein found on the surface of the monkey form of HIV has been created by US company ProdiGene. This development brings an edible, more effective, HIV vaccine for people a step closer, says the US National Institutes of Health.

The protein - SIV gp120 - is the simian form of a protein that will be used in an HIV vaccine trial on people in Thailand later in 2002. Researchers will inject a canarypox virus modified to contain HIV genes and then a booster shot of HIV gp120. Both the trial and ProdiGene's SIV maize research are being funded by the NIH.

But the injected HIV gp120 is not expected to provoke a strong immune response in the mucosal layers of the body, whereas an ingested vaccine would. "For AIDS, a mucosal vaccine is important in two respects," says Stuart Shapiro, of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, US.

HIV Vaccine From Engineered Plants: Mice Form Antibodies Against HIV Protein

May 18, 2009 — A research team at Örebro University in Sweden has succeeded in changing the genes in plants so they can function as a vaccine against HIV. Through gene modification the plants have acquired the capacity to produce a protein that is part of the virus, and the project has taken a giant step forward in that mice that have been fed the plants have reacted and formed antibodies against the protein.

The findings are presented in a new academic dissertation at the university. To produce drugs with the help of plants is a rapidly growing research field that offers new potential to combat diseases. At Örebro University researchers have the goal of developing inexpensive and safe protection against HIV, in the form of plants that contain a vaccine against the virus and can be cultivated all over the world. If they succeed, it will be difficult to exaggerate the significance of this for millions of people around the world, not least in the poorest countries.

ProdiGene Announces Milestone in NIH Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine; - Successful Expression of SIV Sub Unit Vaccine - - Important Step to Make a Future Edible AIDS Vaccine.

KEYSTONE, Colo. -- ProdiGene, Inc., a leader in the development and manufacturing of recombinant proteins in transgenic plant systems, announced here today at the Keystone Symposia, that it successfully expressed a sub unit vaccine in maize that is expected to produce an immune response to simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), the primate equivalent to HIV which causes AIDS in people. The research is funded by an Innovation Grant program from the NIH Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease's Office of AIDS Research (NIH/NIAID/DAIDS). The objective of the program is to develop a source of SIV gp120 protein, a key protein in AIDS research, as well as to establish a potential oral delivery system for an AIDS vaccine.

ProdiGene has successfully expressed SIV gp120 in its transgenic plant system, which now provides a source of the protein to be used in AIDS research. Additionally, ProdiGene scientists will begin animal studies this spring to confirm that ingesting the vaccine will induce an immune response against the virus. This constitutes a key stepping stone for moving into the expression of an HIV vaccine in a transgenic plant system. ProdiGene's long- range plan is to develop an oral delivery method for an AIDS vaccine.

"The search for an AIDS vaccine continues to advance aggressively," remarked Michael Horn, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist and Project leader at ProdiGene. "Once we have the vaccine in hand however, we must be able to make it readily accessible to the populations that are in such dire need. ProdiGene's system promises to provide the edible, highly-scalable and cost effective vaccine option that can meet this demand."

Developing an edible vaccine against HIV is particularly critical because it has reached epidemic proportions, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia, which together have more than one-half of all AIDS victims worldwide. In these areas, standard vaccines are not feasible because they lack the infrastructure to provide trained healthcare personnel and equipment, as well as the refrigeration, necessary for traditional injected vaccines.

ProdiGene, which announced receipt of the grant in November 2000, is working with a protein known as gp120, which is found on the surface of the SIV and HIV virus. Although gp120 may not be the ultimate vaccine used to develop an effective oral AIDS vaccine, expression of the protein using ProdiGene's technology helps provide the vaccine delivery system proof-of-concept sought by the NIH.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1216520/

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