This is a feat we all knew has been a long time coming. We even thought it happened of it nearly a decade ago, between '04 and '05, when Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University said he'd succeed in making human clones. It turned out Hwang was lying.
But a few days ago, it was confirmed. Scientists have made an embryonic clone of a person, using DNA from that person's skin cells. In the future, such a clone could be a source of stem cells, for super-personalized therapies made from people's own DNA.
It's unlikely that this clone could develop into a human, say the scientists, a team of biologists from the U.S. and Thailand. The team plans to publish a paper in the future detailing why not, Nature reported. Previously, the team conducted this entire process, including a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, in monkeys. Those monkey embryo clones always died before they could grow into adult monkeys.
In the future, stem cells made in this way will compete with another method of creating personalized stem cells. Researchers previously showed they are able to transform adult skin cells directly into stem cells, with no stop for a transfer into an egg along the way. Such cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, and they don't require the creation of embryos.
What do you think? should this type of cloning be allowed?
