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CNN Live Sunday

Scientists Clone Human Embryo

Aired November 25, 2001 - 17:36   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: And with a further look at some of the details in today's announcement about cloning of human embryos we turn once again to our medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth, he was making that point right at the end, therapeutic versus reproductive cloning. We've talked about that. They have this beginning, but they don't want to make a human baby -- they don't want to.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And let's talk a little bit about the difference between therapeutic and reproductive cloning. They both use some of the same technology, however they are two very different things.

Let's take therapeutic cloning first. That would be where you take a person -- let's say, you take me, you take some of my skin cells and use a procedure that would turn them into an actual embryo that would be a genetic blueprint of me. So if I, God forbid, down the years, through the years, need a liver transplant, you could use those cells -- and you keep them at their microscopic stage, you never grow them into a baby -- to make a lever that would be a slam dunk, it would be 100 percent known match, because you have only used my DNA to make it.

So that would be some people would say would be the good things that would come out of cloning. You never make a baby; you keep it at the microscopic stage.

Human cloning is where you take someone, you make an embryo that's a genetic blueprint, you then impregnate a woman with that embryo, and then you get a baby that is the genetic blueprint of that person. So again, if you use me, you would have a baby that looks exactly like I did as a baby; and 36 years from now would look exactly like I do now.

So, two very different things, but it's the same technology. So, for example, what the House of Representatives said last summer was, you know what, even if therapeutic cloning could be useful and could revolutionize medicine, we think it should be outlawed, because it could also lead to human cloning, and almost nobody wants that.

KELLEY: Well, and there are those who do want it, do that, though, and that's what a lot of folks are worried about.

COHEN: Right. KELLEY: But they didn't make it past a six-cell stage, and you need a lot more cells than that to do therapeutic, don't you?

COHEN: Well, not necessarily. Sort of depends on what's inside, it depends if you can get at the stem cells. It's a little bit unclear if the embryos that they made in this specific study could lead to actual therapies, because they haven't gone that far yet. And scientists take things step by step. What they did was they created the embryos, and that was certainly worthy of publication, or they can publish now.

The next step would be, are these embryos at a state where we can make therapies from them? They don't know that yet. It's difficult to tell.

KELLEY: Yeah, and the CEO was just saying, it's not next week and it's not next year.

COHEN: Oh, no.

KELLEY: So it's a ways down the road.

COHEN: Years and years.

KELLEY: Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much.

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