A major breakthrough has been made in the field of human cloning after scientists revealed they had used skin to produce embryonic stem cells.
The ‘milestone’ advance could be vital to the fight against a range of diseases, including Parkinson’s and MS.
Dr Shoukhrat Mitalipov, the lead researcher of the Oregon Health and Science University, said: ‘Our finding offers new ways of generating stem cells for patients with dysfunctional or damaged tissues and organs,.
‘Such stem cells can regenerate and replace those damaged cells and tissues and alleviate diseases that affect millions of people.’
His team used somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same technique used to clone Dolly the sheep, to move a human skin cell nucleus to a human egg cell which has had its DNA taken out. Here, the egg evolved into an early-stage embryo which has the same genes as the donor and is capable of maturing into any type of body tissue.
Dr Mitalipov called the research, published in the journal Cell, ‘a significant step forward’, although he denied the method could or would be used to clone humans.