It's fun to watch the responses of the colleagues of scientists from the Stemagen Corp., who have reportedly become the first laboratory to produce cloned human embryos.
Evidently a European laboratory has previously cloned human embryos, but through a different process and nowhere near the advanced state Stemagen Corp. did.
What's funny about it is the professional jealousy in the undertones of the responses to the breakthrough ... things like it's "underwhelming" and the condition of the embryos "look very unhealthy, at best."
The reason all that's going on is the potential for a lot of research money to be brought Stemagen's way.
Because they're a small, relatively unknown company, and had the research unveiled on an obscure web journal named Stem Cells, it's very accomplishment undermines the highly-funded companies that didn't get there first. So both the company and the journal will get a lot of publicity.
The first cloning involved for Stemagen Corp., was the cloning of egg cells with DNA from the skin cells of an adult male. That hadn't been accomplished before.
The goal is to be able to extend the process and create cell lines from the embryos to treat diseases.
As Jeanne Loring from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla said, it may be more significant in taking away the taint left by the Korean hoax in 2004.
“This is a great milestone,” said Loring. “It's important because it sort of wipes away the blot on science left by the Korean scandal by showing this really can be done.”
From a business viewpoint, Stemagen Corp. has now left the ranks of the obscure and has moved into the big time. I'm sure they will start securing a lot more research money as a result.
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