Cloning for the common good

TECHNOBEAT

Scientists are used to working to tight deadlines. There is always great pressure to develop military applications fast.

In commercial situations, there is competition to reach the marketplace first. Even in the ivory towers of pure academia, prizes and grants are almost always awarded on a first-past-the-post basis.

The latest developments at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) impose a novel pressure on scientists working in related areas of nervous diseases and trauma research.

On Tuesday, the UNGA did something unprecedented; it considered a resolution to ban all human cloning research for the second time in two months.

On November 6, this resolution was defeated by the narrow margin of 80 to 79, with the UNGA deciding to review in two years. On December 9, instead of voting, the UNGA shortened the review deadline to one year. In effect, medical researchers now have one year to prove that the benefits of stem-cell research outweigh dangers.

The resolution to ban all human cloning was moved by Costa Rica and supported by the US. Unfortunately, the resolution asks for a blanket ban; it does not distinguish between cloning for reproductive purposes (the creation of identical people) and the cloning of human cells for therapeutic purposes.

Reproductive cloning involves attempts to create identical human beings using methods similar to those that yielded Dolly the sheep and various rats, rabbits and cats. Most scientists oppose reproductive cloning "" there are unknown side-effects and huge errors. Unsuccessful animal clones can be euthanised but there would be multiple ethical issues involved in reproductive human cloning.

But scientists heavily favour stem-cell cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) or stem-cell therapy. Stem-cells, or cells harvested from an early embryo, can be developed into any type of tissue, including nerve-cells.

Stem-cell research could combat a range of currently incurable nervous diseases and conditions such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers. It could also help in the regeneration of destroyed spinal tissue and burnt muscle and bones in accident victims.

Most scientists are now part of a rainbow coalition called the Genetics Policy Institute, which has strongly lobbied for a go-ahead on thereupatic research and a legal distinction being drawn between SCNT and reproductive cloning.

Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute that cloned Dolly the sheep, wrote to the UN last week: "I share the widespread view of leading scientists and medical researchers that failure to proceed with SCNT research is the equivalent to turning our backs on one of the great medical advances of our time. It would lose the hope for understanding and treatment of many deadly diseases and conditions."

So, where's the problem? Stem cells, if you remember, are harvested from human embryos in the very early stages of pregnancy. While usually cloned in a dish, these are also by-products of spontaneous miscarriages and medically-terminated pregnancies, in other words, abortions.

The religious right in the US and in many Catholic countries sees a ban on SCNT as a logical corollary to a ban on abortions.

This has led to a somewhat schizophrenic public position for the US administration. On the one hand, it favours the unrestricted consumption of unlabelled, genetically-modified food and it has engaged with several spats with the EU, which is much more cautious about the labelling and use of GM food.

On the other, the American right has done its best to outlaw abortions in the US and tried to export this attitude by supporting the blanket anti-human cloning law.

This time even die-hard US ally UK was on the other side of the fence. The resolution failed despite a widespread consensus that reproductive cloning should be banned.

"It is clear there is no consensus in respect to therapeutic cloning research," Britain's Deputy Ambassador, Adam Thomson, said at the UNGA. "By pressing for action to ban all cloning, supporters of the Costa Rican resolution have destroyed the possibility of action on an area on which we are all agreed "" a ban on reproductive cloning."