Reproductive Medicine or Cloning?

While a fertility experiment by Chinese scientists raised red flags among some ethicists because of its cloning-like technology, others applauded the work as simply an advance in fertility research that could someday help childless couples.

Doctors in China removed the DNA nucleus of fertilized eggs produced by a woman and man wishing to conceive. The nucleus was transferred to unfertilized donor eggs since the cytoplasm (material surrounding nucleus) in the original eggs was suspected of being a cause of the patient's infertility problems. The reconstituted eggs were then placed back in the woman wishing to conceive and a pregnancy with triplets resulted. One of the embryos was aborted at the patient's request and the other two died later in the pregnancy, presumably of unrelated causes.

The first of its kind, the research was primarily conducted in China at the Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Science in Guangzhou, China. Doctors there consulted with Dr. Jamie Grifo and Dr. John Zhang of New York University, who had done earlier research in this area but eventually halted their work because of likely federal regulation. Reproductive endocrinologists see the research as a positive advance for women in their late thirties and older who may have defects in their eggs due to age. Such defects would keep an embryo from developing.

So what is the difference between this procedure and cloning? In cloning, the DNA nucleus of an adult animal cell is transplanted into an unfertilized egg to make an exact copy of the adult animal. The transferred DNA has to be stimulated to develop in the same way a normally fertilized egg would.

In a story reported by the New York Times, Dr. Grifo said, "Cloning is making a copy of a human being who already exists." "This is nuclear transfer, one element of cloning. It allows a couple to have their genetic baby, not a clone. They shouldn't even be discussed in the same sentence."

An interesting side note to this story is that since the experiment was conducted, the Chinese government has banned the nuclear transfer technology.

Source: Chinese doctors use technique developed by NYU researchers, Newsday.com

Resources on cloning: the Association of American Medical Colleges and the National Academy of Sciences

October 18, 2003