Brits move ahead on Stem Cell research.
Britain has cleared the way for the use of animal eggs in human stem cell research.
One of the issues with current therapeutic cloning is the source of human eggs to be used in the research. Eggs left over from IVF treatments is one source and the other is egg donations from female volunteers. The donation of eggs is not with out risk to the volunteer.
Because of scarcity of supply some research in some areas of the use of stem cells has been limited. Britain has now decided to allow their researchers to use non-human eggs. This will make eggs more available to researchers and thus allow more experimentation to be conducted.
In therapeutic cloning the genetic material in an egg is removed and discarded. Then the genetic material from a non-sex, somatic, cell is inserted into the egg. The egg “re-programs” this genetic material. The egg is then stimulated with electricity and it starts to divide. When there are about 100 cells the process is stopped and the resulting non-differentiated stem cells can be harvested.
It is thought that the resulting embryonic stem cells could possible be used in the treatment of degenerative brain diseases.
