Stem Cells Grow Into Live Mice

[Snerticus]

The implications of this are horrific, even if they are using adult stem cells:

dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/23/stem-cells-mice.html

Snert

 

[Dale_M]

Here is a bit more on the technique:

First, the scientists took skin cells from mouse embryos and reprogrammed those skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells. Those reprogrammed cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).

Separately, the scientists fused two early-stage mouse embryos together, when each embryo only consisted of one or two cells. The resulting embryo couldn’t develop on its own.

The researchers then inserted the iPSCs into that embryo and placed it into a surrogate mouse mother.

webmd.com/news/20090723/mice-made-from-mouse-skin-cells

 

[gilliam]

Separately, the scientists fused two early-stage mouse embryos together, when each embryo only consisted of one or two cells. The resulting embryo couldn’t develop on its own.

So they killed 2 embyos, then grafted skin cells on it to make it grow.

Yea, sounds like Frankenstein.

 

[Oblaidon]

This would be like cloning. Right?

 

[Dale_M]

This would be like cloning. Right?

hmmm… I’ll defer to more knowledgeable persons than myself, but the technique seems different. In somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning, the DNA is removed from a mature cell and inserted into an unfertlized egg cell which has had its nucleus destroyed. If the egg then replicates, you get a clone.

The process mentioned in the news articles involves a pluripotent stem cell which has been inserted into two zygotes (fertilized egg cells) which had been fused together. I’m not sure that it necessarily would be considered a clone since I am not sure that one line of DNA is involved.