Evidence for God from Science

I'm working on an article about Missouri Amendment 2. I want to be as accurate and fair as possible, but I'm a bit confused and need some help.

One one hand, the amendments bans cloning...

(1) No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being.

One the other hand, it makes somatic cell nuclear transfer research a constitutional right.

(5) “Human embryonic stem cell research,” also referred to as “early stem cell research,”means any scientific or medical research involving human stem cells derived from in vitro fertilization blastocysts or from somatic cell nuclear transfer. For purposes of this section, human embryonic stem cell research does not include stem cell clinical trials."

Can someone who is well trained in this matter explain the difference between cloning and somatic cell nuclear transfer?

Thanks,

PL

puritan lad wrote:I'm working on an article about Missouri Amendment 2. I want to be as accurate and fair as possible, but I'm a bit confused and need some help.

One one hand, the amendments bans cloning...

(1) No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being.

One the other hand, it makes somatic cell nuclear transfer research a constitutional right.

(5) “Human embryonic stem cell research,” also referred to as “early stem cell research,”means any scientific or medical research involving human stem cells derived from in vitro fertilization blastocysts or from somatic cell nuclear transfer. For purposes of this section, human embryonic stem cell research does not include stem cell clinical trials."

Can someone who is well trained in this matter explain the difference between cloning and somatic cell nuclear transfer?

Thanks,

PL

Somatic cell nuclear transfer is only the first step in cloning. If the resultant cell is manipulated to form an embryo then cloning has been acheived. The transfer itself only creates stem cells which posess the same genetic code as the donor.

Thanks. There seems to be a very fine line in the difference.

puritan lad wrote:Thanks. There seems to be a very fine line in the difference.

Conceptually Yes,
Technically no.

With regards to the Amendment, just what kind (and how much) research is allowed in the area of somatic cell nuclear transfer? I consider myself to be fairly scientifically literate, yet the language in this Amendment is unclear to me, as far as what is allowed here.

I probably won't get the article done before the election, for that reason.

BTW. Can you imagine the average Missouri voter trying figure this out?

>>One one hand, the amendments bans cloning...

(1) No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being.

One the other hand, it makes somatic cell nuclear transfer research a constitutional right.

(5) “Human embryonic stem cell research,” also referred to as “early stem cell research,”means any scientific or medical research involving human stem cells derived from in vitro fertilization blastocysts or from somatic cell nuclear transfer. For purposes of this section, human embryonic stem cell research does not include stem cell clinical trials."<<

This terminology is indeed confusing. An IVF stem cell is harvested from a blastocyst that is unused - due to be thrown out or frozen. The blastocyst comes from an egg which has been fertilized outside the body and has divided enough times to have a total of 100-150 cells. The stem cells reside in a clump in the middle. The rest will become placenta, etc. To create a line of stem cells, some are taken out of the clump in the middle and cultured.

In somatic cell nuclear transfer, the donor nucleus is taken from a donor animal's "stem cell". As with "Dolly" the cell could have originally been an adult cell which was manipulated into going back to an earlier state where it's not committed to be any particular type of cell. The cells that result from its many future divisions have the potential to become any of the about 200 cell types in the body.

The recipient egg has had its nuclear material (DNA) removed, leaving most of the cytoplasm. The nuclear material from the donor stem cell is placed in the recipient egg. This nuclear material already has a full set of chromosomes, so fertilization is not an issue. It is very much like an embryonic stem cell, although there are many very specific differences.

These procedures are extremely tedious and specialized, done under a microscope on cells much smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence.

Cloning humans is neither ethical nor feasible for several reasons. A few of these are: Cloning has been done on many species of mammals, but the success rate is very low, abnormalities during pregancy are the norm, and there are frequent abnormalities of the newborn. This can be tolerated in cattle, but not in humans.

The correct use of these cells is for research in manipulating these cells to differentiate into replacement cells for diseased tissue in humans.

From the data presented in the Missouri amendment, I can't tell if somatic cell transfer stem cells would be made legal or not.

A good, short reference:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/hea ... lls/dn9982

Thanks David,

I have much reading to do here, so my article will have to wait. At least I don't live in Missouri, so I don't have to vote on this either way.