Human 'cloning' makes stem cells

5 October 2011 Last updated at 19:04 By James Gallagher Health reporter, BBC News Lead scientist Dr Dieter Egli: "Research gives hope for making cells to cure human disease in the future"

A form of cloning has been used to create personalised embryonic stem cells in humans, say researchers.

Genetic material was taken from an adult skin cell and transferred into a human egg. This was grown to produce an early embryo.

Stem cells have huge potential in medicine as they can transform into any other cell type in the body.

However, the stem cells formed contained chromosomes from both the adult and the egg cells.

The technique used - somatic cell nuclear transfer - shot to fame in 1997 when Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, was unveiled to the world.

A South Korean scientist, Hwang Woo-suk, had claimed to have created stem cells from cloned human embryos, but was found to have faked the evidence.

The lead researcher at the New York Stem Cell Foundation Laboratory, Dr Dieter Egli, said there was "a great question mark" about whether the cloning technique could be reliably used in humans.

Dolly the sheep

He said other "groups had tried before, but failed".

Writing in the journal Nature, he said his group had also failed using traditional techniques.

When they removed the genetic material from the egg and replaced it with the chromosomes from a skin cell, the egg divided but failed to go past the 6-12 cell stage.

However, when they left the egg's own genetic material in place and added the skin chromosomes, the egg developed. It reached the blastocyst stage, which can contain up to 100 cells and is the usual source of embryonic stem cells.

Eggs and sperm both have one set of chromosomes, which combined means adults have two copies of each chromosome.

In this technique the two adult copies are added to the single copy in the egg meaning a total of three, which can be problematic.

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Many diseases are impossible to treat. As the researchers put it they "cannot be cured, they can only be cared for".

Stem cells are one of the great hopes of medicine because they can turn into any other type of cell - nerve, heart, bone, skin, liver etc.

Create heart cells and it might be possible to repair the damage from a heart attack. Insulin-producing cells are destroyed in patients with type 1 diabetes, but stem cells could one day be used to grow more.

There are already clinical trials taking place. The first embryonic stem cell trial in Europe, testing a treatment for progressive sight loss, has started in London.

However this does not use the patient's own cells. Immunosuppressant drugs are likely to be needed to prevent rejection. This is why making stem cells from the body's own cells is seen as such a gold standard of medicine.

Often embryos without the correct number of chromosomes do not develop at all. Down's syndrome is caused by three copies of just one chromosome.

Researchers will need to produce embryonic cells which have only donor DNA, however, once the egg starts to divide the chromosomes are combined in the nucleus and would be near impossible to separate.

Dr Egli told the BBC: "The cells we have made are not yet for therapeutic use. There is clearly more work to be done, this is early days.

"We see this as a step on that road, so now we do know that a human egg can turn an adult specialised cell, such as a skin cell, into a stem cell."

Prof Mary Herbert, from the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University, said: "This study shows that the conventional approach to somatic cell nuclear transfer is inefficient in humans.

"However, the authors were able to increase the efficiency by leaving the host oocyte [egg] genome in place.

"While this approach does not in itself provide a solution, it takes us a step closer to understanding where the problems lie."

No embryos required

Recently a different route to stem cells has been used. Instead of using an egg, a chemical bath "reprogrammes" an adult cell into a stem cell.

While this is seen as more ethical, there are concerns about whether such cells could be used therapeutically. There are differences between embryonic and "induced" stem cells, with the latter being more prone to expressing cancer causing genes.

Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, from the UK National Institute for Medical Research, said: "This paper will be seen as significant both by those who are trying to use somatic cell nuclear transfer to produce human patient-specific embryonic stem cell lines and by those who oppose human 'cloning' experiments."

Publisher of upcoming 'birther' book makes no apologies

The publisher of an upcoming book questioning the circumstances of President Barack Obama’s birth took credit Wednesday for fueling conspiracy theories about the president’s origins, saying he paid for an army of private detectives in Hawaii and provided information about the issue to  Donald Trump.

Joseph Farah, the founder and chief executive officer of World Net Daily, a conspiracy-mongering website with its own publishing arm, also said he has no intention of standing down despite the White House’s release of the so-called long form birth certificate showing that Obama was born in the state of Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, as he always has said.

“I’m not apologizing for nothing,” a defiant Farah said in a telephone interview with NBC News, insisting there are still questions about Obama’s citizenship aside from where he was born.

The comments by Farah underscore Obama’s observation Wednesday that hard-core birthers are unlikely to be persuaded by any evidence, no matter how compelling. “I know that there’s going to be a segment of people for which, no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest,” Obama said at a White House press event to release the birth certificate.

Farah, who still believes there was foul play associated with the death of Clinton White House lawyer Vince Foster, would seem to be a perfect example. His comments during a lengthy telephone interview with NBC also provide new insights into how the “birther” issue got traction in the first place – and how some of the president’s most strident critics plan to continue to hammer away at the issue, in part by switching the discussion to questioning Obama’s “citizenship” rather than his birth in the United States.

Shifting the discussion
In fact, Farah said, Obama’s citizenship, not his birth, is actually  the principal theme of World Net Daily’s upcoming book by Jerome Corsi titled,  “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President.” Corsi first garnered headlines in 2004 as one of the architects of the so-called “Swift Boat” attacks on John Kerry’s war record.

Slated to be published May 17,  Corsi ‘s book on Obama shot to the top of Amazon’s book rankings last week after  being featured on the Drudge Report.  Farah said there have already been 150,000 advance orders for the book and he ultimately expects to print between 500,000 and 1 million copies, figures that would land it near the top of the New York Times best seller list. (As of Wednesday afternoon, the book was ranked 29th

on Amazon’s list of top 100 books, and No. 1 among books about government.) 

Farah said he and Corsi also have plotted a major publicity campaign for the book that will start on May 15, with exclusive interviews on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s radio and TV show. (Corsi himself is refusing any interviews until then, according to a spokesman. He did not respond to an email request for comment from NBC News.) 

Farah acknowledged that the book’s title may be “unfortunate” in light of Wednesday’s release of Obama’s birth certificate, even while he insisted the document must still be more fully analyzed before he accepts it as authentic. “I think it will take us a little while to examine this and determine if it’s legitimate,” he said about the birth certificate, which was released by the White House along with a letter from the director of Hawaii’s Health Department certifying its legitimacy.

Even if it is authentic, Farah said the real issue is that Obama is still not eligible to be president because his father was Kenyan and his adopted father was Indonesian, making him a potential “dual citizen” of two separate foreign countries. (Farah supplied no evidence to support his contention that Obama ever held “dual citizenship.” Nor did he explain why it would make any difference, given Obama’s birth to an American mother on U.S. soil, which would meet the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that he be a “natural-born citizen.”)

“I know for some people this settles the issue,” Farah said of the birth certificate. “It’s up to us to persuade people that there’s a lot more to this issue than the Hawaiian birth.”

Publisher of upcoming 'birther' book makes no apologies The publisher of an upcoming book questioning the circumstances of President Barack Obama’s birth took credit Wednesday for fueling conspiracy theories about the president’s origins.

Updated 3 minutes ago 4/28/2011 12:59:37 PM +00:00 Obama puts new national security team in place Updated 5 minutes ago 4/28/2011 12:57:30 PM +00:00 Push for Pentagon cuts tops Panetta's agenda Updated 35 minutes ago 4/28/2011 12:27:38 PM +00:00 Daniels mulls presidential run, contentious bill On birth certificate, Obama derides 'carnival barkers'

'A totally wacky argument'
Asked about Farah's contention, Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe said by email that this is "a totally wacky argument, without any conceivable merit. ... The 14th amendment unambiguously and expressly confers U.S. citizenship on everyone ‘born . . . in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ This means that Barack Obama was a U.S. citizen at birth. independent of the citizenship or age of either or both of his biological or adoptive parents. ... This birther thing is a moving target, rather like the creatures in the “Night of the Living Dead.” Driving a stake through its heart seems incapable of killing it.")

Farah’s commitment to fueling the birther issue dates back to the 2008 presidential campaign, when he said he had hired a dozen private detectives in Hawaii to dig up material on Obama’s birth in hopes of finding something that might contradict the “certification of live birth” released by the Obama campaign at the time. That led to World Net Daily articles and columns by Farah that continued even after the election, including a Nov. 26, 2008, column by Farah headlined "Where Was Obama Born?"

One issue he and others harped upon: The certification of live birth didn’t contain the name of the hospital where Obama was born, suggesting that there was some mystery about the matter. Farah in his 2008 column called it "something of a state secret." Farah even issued a "birthday challenge" to Obama in August 2009 to release his long-form birth certificate, saying World Net Daily would make a $10,000 donation to whatever hospital was listed on the document.

Wednesday’s release of the certificate of live birth would seem to settle the matter once and for all: It lists the hospital as Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, the hospital where Obama has said he was born. Pressed by MSNBC TV's Cenk Uygur Wednesday whether he would honor his commitment and make the donation to Kapiloani, Farah replied: "As soon as we establish that it's a legitimate document."

More recently, Farah said he provided an advance copy of Corsi’s book to Trump two weeks ago, about the time the potential GOP presidential candidate began to take up the birther issue. Farah said Trump was one of the “very few” people who were provided a pre-publication copy of the book under a non-disclosure agreement.

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in 'The Isikoff Files'

Michael Cohen, a top aide to Trump, told NBC Wednesday that he signed the non-disclosure agreement for the book, but that he doesn’t recall actually receiving it. Still, Cohen acknowledged that “Jerome Corsi had reached out to Mr. Trump to explain certain facts that are in his book” and that the two had talked “on a handful of occasions.” Cohen also said he had consulted with Corsi on numerous other occasions.

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Asked if he believes that he and Trump were  supplied with misinformation about Obama’s birth by Corsi, Cohen dismissed the question and echoed the public comments made earlier Wednesday by his boss: “Mr. Trump was successful in getting (Obama) to put out his birth certificate,” something nobody else had succeeded in doing.

Farah also took credit for Wednesday’s disclosure, saying there is “no question” that Corsi’s forthcoming book led the White House to release the document. “"They knew (the book) was coming," he said.

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Ariane 5 makes final 2010 flight

29 December 2010 Last updated at 22:25 By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News The sixth Ariane 5 rocket of 2010 powers away from its South American launch pad Europe's heavy-lift rocket, the Ariane 5, has completed its sixth and final mission of 2010, putting two satellites high above the Earth.

The launcher powered skyward from its Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 1827 local time (2127 GMT).

Ariane's biggest "passenger" was Hispasat-1E, a 5.3-tonne platform that will deliver a range of video and data services to Europe and the Americas.

The 2.7t Koreasat-6 will handle TV and telecoms services for South Korea.

"It's the 41st consecutive success of Ariane 5 and in 2010 we will have launched a total of 12 large telecommunications satellites out of a world total of 20," said Jean-Yves Le Gall, the chairman and CEO of the rocket's operator, Arianespace. "This gives us a market share of 60%."

The vehicle's first outing of 2011 is likely to be a re-supply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

Ariane will be used to put Europe's 20-tonne space freighter, ATV-Johannes Kepler, in a low-Earth orbit. The flight is scheduled for 15 February.

After separating from the Ariane, the freighter will use its own thrusters to get to the orbiting outpost.

It will be carrying more than six tonnes of fuel, air, food and equipment for the station's astronauts.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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