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CNN Live At Daybreak

Cloned Human Embryo Re-Sparks Ethical Debate

Aired November 26, 2001 - 05:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, back here in the U.S., there is strong reaction this morning to word that a Massachusetts company has cloned the first human embryo. Now, scientists are interested in learning a lot more, but some religious and political leaders say that if it's the first clone, it should be the last.

CNN Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has more on the science behind the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you needed a new liver, you could go to a transplant bank and search for the best genetic match. But no match is perfect and your body might reject it. What if scientists could make a liver in a laboratory that matches yours perfectly?

A company called Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts has taken steps towards doing just that. They created embryos that are clones, exact genetic replicas of the person who supplied the DNA.

To explain the medical significance, let's say scientists wanted to make a new liver for Jane Doe. First, they would take a woman's engine and remove the DNA. Then they'd take some DNA from Jane Doe and put it into the hollowed out egg. Then they would expose this new egg to chemicals that would change its electrical charge, making the egg divide into an embryo.

That's how far scientists at Advanced Cell Technology took it. The hope is that in the future that embryo could be used to create medical therapies. The embryo would stay at the microscope stage. Scientists would open it up, where inside there are stem cells. Stem cells have the potential to grow into anything, so scientists would take the stem cells out and treat them in such a way that they'd grow into a liver, theoretically with no fear that her body would reject it, since only Jane Doe's DNA was used to make the liver.

(on camera): When told this way, the benefits of cloning seem obvious. You potentially create body parts that are perfect matches.

But here's the big worry. What if, instead of creating just body parts in a lab, someone took an embryo and implanted it into a woman's womb? Then nine months later, you could have a human clone, and most people think human cloning is abhorrently unethical. (voice-over): Advanced Cell Technologies says they would never, ever create a baby, just medical treatments. But the president of the company admits by publishing their study, they're helping people who do want to clone human beings. In fact, they've given would be cloners two recipes for cloning a human, the way we described earlier, and a completely new method. They took a woman's egg without changing it and then exposed it to the chemicals, forming an embryo.

Advanced Cell Technologies says they've given the world two new ways to potentially revolutionize medical science. But critics fear the technology could also be the key to Pandora's box.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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