FOX News: Could humans be cloned?

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Could humans be cloned? May 19th 2013, 11:00 Actresses Tricia Helfer (left) and Grace Park (right), who played humanoid Cylons with countless clones on the TV show "Battlestar Galactica."Syfy The first step during SCNT is enucleation or removal of nuclear genetic material (chromosomal) from a human egg. An egg is positioned with holding pipette (on the left) and egg's chromosomes are visualized under polarized microscope. A hole is made in the egg's shell (zone pellucida) using a laser and a smaller pipette (on the right) is inserted through the opening. The chromosomes then sucked in inside the pipette and slowly removed from the egg.Cell, Tachibana et al. Next Slide Previous Slide The news that researchers have used cloning to make human embryos for the purpose of producing stem cells may have some people wondering if it would ever be possible to clone a person. Although it would be unethical, experts say it is likely biologically possible to clone a human being. But even putting ethics aside, the sheer amount of resources needed to do it is a significant barrier. Since the 1950s when researchers cloned a frog, scientists have cloned dozens of animal species, including mice, cats, sheep, pigs and cows. 'It's grossly unethical.' - Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at the biotech company Advanced Cell Technology In each case, researchers encountered problems that needed to be overcome with trial and error, said Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at the biotech company Advanced Cell Technology, which works on cell therapies for human diseases, and has cloned animals. With mice, researchers were able to use thousands of eggs, and conduct many experiments, to work out these problems, Lanza said. "Its a numbers game," he said. But with primates, eggs are a very precious resource, and it is not easy to acquire them to conduct experiments, Lanza said. In addition, researchers can't simply apply what they've learned from cloning mice or cows to cloning people. For instance, cloning an animal requires that researchers first remove the nucleus of an egg cell. When researchers do this, they also remove proteins that are essential to help cells divide, Lanza said. In mice, this isn't a problem, because the embryo that is ultimately created is able to make these proteins again. But primates aren't able to do this, and researchers think it may be one reason that attempts to clone monkeys have failed, Lanza said. [See How Stem Cell Cloning Works (Infographic)] What's more, cloned animals often have different kinds of genetic abnormalities that can prevent embryo implantation in a uterus, or cause the fetus to spontaneously abort, or the animal to die shortly after birth, Lanza said. These abnormities are common because cloned embryos have just one parent rather than two, which means that a molecular process known as "imprinting" does not occur properly in cloned embryos, Lanza said. Imprinting takes place during embryo development, and selectively silences certain genes from one parent or the other. Problems with imprinting can result in extremely large placentas, which ultimately leads to problems with blood flow for the fetus, Lanza said. In one experiment, Lanza and colleagues cloned a species of cattle called banteng, and it was born at twice the size of a normal banteng. It had to be euthanized, Lanza said. The extremely high rate of death, and the risk of developmental abnormities from cloning makes cloning people unethical, Lanza said. "It's like sending your baby up in a rocket knowing there's a 50-50 chance it's going to blow up. It's grossly unethical," Lanza said. Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. More FromLiveScience 7 Absolutely Evil Medical Experiments Inside Life Science: Once Upon a Stem Cell Unraveling the Human Genome: 6 Molecular Milestones Related Stories Fine for destruction of ancient Mayan pyramid? $5,000 Scientists study violent winds of Uranus In medical breakthrough, scientists convert human skin cells into embryonic stem cells Cicadas emerge on East Coast, 30 billion expected Here's the oldest water on Earth

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