DNA Swapping Successful in China
BEIJING (UPI) -- Chinese and American doctors expect to announce Tuesday they have created the first human pregnancy with a controversial technique called nuclear transfer. One woman became pregnant with triplets, but none of the fetuses survived, the Wall Street Journal reported. The technique, similar to that used in cloning Dolly the sheep, took DNA from fertilized cells and inserted it into the hollowed out eggs of a 30-year-old Chinese woman donor. This gives the egg three parents, in effect, with the chromosomes of the mother and father, and the mitochondria of the donor.
The leading U.S. scientist, Dr. James A. Grifo, director of the division of reproductive endrocrinology at New York University, said the experiment attempts to solve fertility's biggest problem -- women over the age of 35 having eggs prone to genetic errors. Some believe the problem lies in the energy-rich liquid surrounding the egg nucleus, called ooplasm, that may solved by a "better environment" for embryo growth. The experiment has been banned in the United States and Friday China banned the nuclear-transfer technique in fertility procedures, the Journal said. The technique has been highly criticized as unsafe, and because it is very close to human cloning and genetic engineering of humans.
BEIJING (UPI) -- Chinese and American doctors expect to announce Tuesday they have created the first human pregnancy with a controversial technique called nuclear transfer. One woman became pregnant with triplets, but none of the fetuses survived, the Wall Street Journal reported. The technique, similar to that used in cloning Dolly the sheep, took DNA from fertilized cells and inserted it into the hollowed out eggs of a 30-year-old Chinese woman donor. This gives the egg three parents, in effect, with the chromosomes of the mother and father, and the mitochondria of the donor.
The leading U.S. scientist, Dr. James A. Grifo, director of the division of reproductive endrocrinology at New York University, said the experiment attempts to solve fertility's biggest problem -- women over the age of 35 having eggs prone to genetic errors. Some believe the problem lies in the energy-rich liquid surrounding the egg nucleus, called ooplasm, that may solved by a "better environment" for embryo growth. The experiment has been banned in the United States and Friday China banned the nuclear-transfer technique in fertility procedures, the Journal said. The technique has been highly criticized as unsafe, and because it is very close to human cloning and genetic engineering of humans.
Charles Mims
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