clone (Page 5)

Doctors are developing artificial wombs in which embryos can grow outside a woman?s body. Scientists have created prototype wombs made out of cells extracted from women?s bodies. Embryos successfully attached themselves to the walls of these laboratory wombs and began to grow. Experiments had to be terminated after a few days to comply with in-vitro fertilization (IVF) regulations.

?We hope to create complete artificial wombs using these techniques in a few years,? says Dr. Hung-Ching Liu of Cornell University?s Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility. ?Women with damaged uteruses and wombs will be able to have babies for the first time.?
read more

Dr. Michael West, of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts and his team have created a monkey embryo without the use of sperm that can be used to create stem cells. Through a process called parthenogenesis, stem cells were extracted from the embryo to make specialized tissues such as heart and brain material. ?These were fully developed cells that could have been used medically,? he says.

He and his colleagues used chemicals to cause a monkey egg to turn into an embryo that was allowed to grow to six cells. West says it may be possible to make human embryonic stem cells this way. Other experts say that this technique would work only with women of reproductive age who could provide the eggs and thus would not benefit males.
read more

A stem cell has been found in adults that can turn into any tissue in the body. Until now, only stem cells from early embryos were thought to have such properties. If the finding is confirmed, it will mean cells from your own body could one day be turned into all sorts of perfectly matched replacement tissues and even organs.
read more

PPL Therapeutics of Edinburgh, Scotland has cloned 5 pigs with ?knock out? genes, meaning that their organs can be transplanted to humans. They were born on Christmas day and are named Noel, Angel, Star, Joy and Mary. They contain special genes prevent the human immune system rejecting their transplanted organs.

PPL cloned the piglets with help from the scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep in 1997.The company has also successfully introduced human DNA into animals such as cows, which then produce proteins in their milk which can be used in human medicine.
read more