Cloned embryos yield stem cells
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
A U.S. scientist said Tuesday that he had derived stem cells from cloned monkey embryos, a first that may help researchers develop new medical treatments for humans.
Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the Oregon National Primate Research Center told scientists at a conference in Australia that he used somatic cell nuclear transfer, also known as therapeutic cloning, to produce embryos that were genetically identical to a 10-year-old rhesus macaque monkey. The technique involves removing the DNA from an egg and replacing it with DNA from another animal. The resulting embryos are then used to make stem cells.
