[extropy-chat] “Embryos” created without paternal chromosomes

[Damien Broderick]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996733

Zapped human eggs divide without sperm

19:00 01 December 04

A trick that persuades human eggs to divide as if they have been fertilised 
could provide a source of embryonic stem cells that sidesteps ethical 
objections to existing techniques. It could also be deployed to improve the 
success rate of IVF.

“Embryos” created by the procedure do not contain any paternal chromosomes 
– just two sets of chromosomes from the mother – and so cannot develop into 
babies. This should remove the ethical objections that some people have to 
harvesting from donated human embryos. There are high hopes that stem 
cells, which can develop into many different cell types, could be used to 
treat a range of diseases.

The tricked eggs divide for four or five days until they reach 50 to 100 
cells – the blastocyst stage. These blastocysts should in theory yield stem 
cells, but because they are parthenogenetic – produced from the egg only – 
they cannot be viewed as a potential human life, says Karl Swann of the 
University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff, UK.  [etc]