University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, Centre for Stem Cell Biology & Developmental genetics, Institute of Human Genetics
Derivation of Embryonic Stem cell Lines from Interspecies Embryos produced by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (R0179)
Person Responsible: Dr Majlinda Lako
Embryonic stem cells (ESC) are potential useful because they can be differentiated into most of the cell types found in the adult body so in theory at least they could be used as a source of cells to replace disease damaged tissues.
To prevent immune rejection of these cells, it would be necessary to make their parent ESC genetically identical to the patient and the only way be can do this so far is by nuclear transfer(sometimes known as therapeutic cloning).
The problems with nuclear transfer are that it hasn't been proven to work with human eggs and from studies in animal cloning it doesn't necessarily complete the reprogramming of the patients genes that is needed for us to be able to generate ESC and genes which should only be switched on in the patients body cells sometimes persist in the cloned embryo. Clearly, we need to investigate the method the egg cell uses to reprogram the patient's cells but we can't do this with the small numbers of human eggs currently available.
The use of animal eggs offers a potential way around these problems. ESC generation from cloned embryos produced by transferring human cells into rabbit eggs has been demonstrated in China. These cells seem to behave in a manner very similar to 'normal human ESC we believe that this technique should be applied and extended in the UK since it is a useful investigative tool that will provide us with a great of data on how reprogramming works.
If we can understand this process, we may be able to devise methods of producing ESC like cells without having to use egg cells in the first place which will not only greatly increase the potential usefulness of ESC for curing disease but will also eliminate the ethical concerns associated with the creation of embryos solely for the purpose of ESC derivation.
Back to research we have approved
Page last updated: 11 April 2009