Post by Shadow on Sept 13, 2005 18:12:05 GMT -5
BBC
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News science reporter, Dublin
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.
"At the moment we have not managed to get stem cells from these embryos but that continues to be our ambition," Roslin's Dr Paul De Sousa told the British Association's Festival of Science in the Irish capital.
Embryonic stem (ES) cells are "master cells" that in the normal reproductive situation go on to form all of the body's tissues.
The Edinburgh-based team hopes to obtain such cells from the parthenotes and use them to investigate their potential in laboratory research and in medical treatments.
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News science reporter, Dublin
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.
"At the moment we have not managed to get stem cells from these embryos but that continues to be our ambition," Roslin's Dr Paul De Sousa told the British Association's Festival of Science in the Irish capital.
Embryonic stem (ES) cells are "master cells" that in the normal reproductive situation go on to form all of the body's tissues.
The Edinburgh-based team hopes to obtain such cells from the parthenotes and use them to investigate their potential in laboratory research and in medical treatments.