BBC: 'Virgin conception' first for UK (Cloning/Stem Cells)

[420inTN]

Human embryos created using a so-called "virgin conception" technique have been made in the UK for the first time.

The Roslin Institute, which also cloned Dolly the sheep, reported the so-called parthenotes at a Dublin conference.

They are made by stimulating a human egg to start dividing like an embryo without the addition of any genetic material from a male sperm cell.

The Edinburgh team has so far created six parthenotes to the stage at which they would hope to mine stem cells.

more http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4228992.stm

[merwin]

1. Very cool, but how is this any more acceptable to the RW?

At the point that they simulate 'conception', it becomes (to them) a human life.

[420inTN]

2. Dunno. Self-replicatin egg?

Not calling it an embryo?

[mike_c]

3. I can't speak for fundies, and I wouldn't expect them to respond...

...to reason in any event, but such a haploid dividing ovum could NEVER develop into a viable embryo. Of course, I'm also not clear about why haploid stem cells from such a lineage would be useful either, except possibly for some very basic research.

on edit-- OK, I read the article. The OP doesn't make it clear that the technique uses the polar body meiosis products to pair up the ovum chromosomes, so the result is diploid, NOT haploid. That's another matter altogether, at least with regard to the utility of the resulting stem cells for research.

[sakabatou]

9. So the cells have all 46 chromosomes right?

[mike_c]

10. well, 23 diploid chromosomes-- my original question assumed...

...that the 23 chromosomes remained haploid. But yes, all 23 chromosomes are in diploid pairs. Meiosis produces four haploid gametes, but females normally dispose of three of them during oogenesis. This experiment involved using one of those to "fertilize" the ovum by pairing up its chromosomes.

on edit-- since it's post-meiotic, it isn't cloning in the strictest sense, because the allele combinations in the projeny could be different than those in the parent (heterozygous loci could become homozygous), but any such differences would only reduce genetic diversity rather than enhance it.

[Zhade]

4. That would make it, what, the first ever proven virgin conception?

NT!

[420inTN]

11. No.

As another poster mentioned, it's been in the past by a different technique. This is a first for the UK, though (according to the article).

[Maple]

5. I read about

this being done years ago with a laser. All babies born from this process would be female.

[420inTN]

8. Well, yeah... No "Y" chromosome == No male. n/t

[delete_bush]

6. Great, the one thing I have that women

still need, and now they've dispatched with that too. Guess I'll have to learn how to take out the trash.

[420inTN]

7. It's another example of Femi-Nazis trying to rid the world of men.

WHOAH... I think that I just channeled Rush Limbaugh. Excuse me while I take a shower. See you next week.

:cry: