GE - cloning/animals/fish/humans

[GEN lists <genetics@gn.apc.org>]

1summary by patnews
2Dolly's 'Dad' Dismisses Cloning Fears 
3Britain Grants Embryo Cloning 
4Double Trouble -- State Panel Grapples With Ethics of Human Cloning;
California's ban on procedure  may expire, extend in 2003
5 Japanese scientists have successfully bred two generations
...................
6Lactose-intolerant?: Moose may be key 
7 SYNTHETIC DNA MAY SPAWN DESIGNER HUMANS
8Leaked report backs up claim that farmed fish hurt wild stocks 
9Japanese scientists breed world's first  recloned cow
10Clone of Cloned Bull Bred in Japan 
11China Successfully Clones Goats From Somatic Cells of Genetically Altered
Goat 
12Recloned bullock  born in Kagoshima institute 
13U.S. Halts All of Institute's Gene Therapy Tests 
14 British Patent on Cloned Human Cells Raises Ethics Concerns 
==================================================
1
Newswires report that 
a Japanese group has cloned the clone of a bull. They are researching the 
aging effect in cloning - i.e., how old is a clone. If there is a cloning 
effect, the n-th clone of a clone will be born and die instantly  In a 
related note, newswires also report that Jeremy Rifkin is challenging the 
recent UK patent issuing to the Roslin Institute for cloning, hoping to get 
it overturned or narrowed.
from Patnews
=======================
2
Headline: Dolly's 'Dad' Dismisses Cloning Fears 
Wire Service: RTos (Reuters Online Service) 
Date: Tue, Jan 25, 2000
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. 
The following news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole 
or in part, without the prior written consent of Reuters Ltd. 
By David Luhnow 
EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Three years ago, one of history's most 
extraordinary creatures was born: an unassuming Scottish sheep named Dolly 
who became the world's first mammal cloned from an adult. 
Now Dolly's "Dad," the scientist who led the Edinburgh-based team that 
cloned her, and a former colleague have written a book telling the story of 
the unlikely 20th Century icon -- a tale they hope history will remember as 
one of human achievement and not human folly. 
For no sooner was Dolly standing shakily on her legs and blinking at 
the cameras than the world began to ponder the possibilities both 
fascinating and frightening: the cloning of humans, spare body parts made 
in a lab, and designer babies. 
"We wanted to promote the debate about cloning and inform the debate," 
biologist Ian Wilmut told Reuters following a public lecture in Edinburgh, 
one of a series he and co-author Keith Campbell are doing throughout 
Britain. 
In the book, Wilmut and Campbell describe the complicated science, 
hard work and blind luck that led to Dolly, whose creation shattered the 
previously held belief that no single cell from an adult could be used to 
recreate the whole organism. 
The pair disclose how they named the sheep after Dolly Parton because 
the clone started life as a mammary cell from an adult ewe. 
THE CLONE RANGERS 
Dubbed the "Clone Rangers" by London's Sunday Times newspaper, both 
men are keenly aware that their work ushered in an age where scientists 
will eventually control the process of life; in effect, play God. The book 
is called "The Second Creation: the age of biological control." 
But they are also keen to calm public fear about cloning and genetics. 
Cloning humans, for example, is still a long way off, they say -- something 
that should give people and their governments time to consider the ethical 
implications. 
"I've never heard a good enough reason to copy a human," Wilmut says, 
adding that he would also oppose parents trying to "enhance" their 
offspring through gene manipulation -- giving them improved athletic 
ability, for example. 
"I can't see how we would know what the effect of altering a gene 
would be on the rest of the child. And we aren't about to start 
experimenting on children," Wilmut says. 
Wilmut, a softly-spoken Englishman who describes himself as middle 
class, dismisses as the "stuff of Hollywood," notions of unethical 
scientists recreating an army of Hitlers to unleash on the world. 
CLONING NOT JUST A NEAT TRICK 
Cloning is not about performing a neat scientific trick, Wilmut said.. 
Combined with genetic engineering, it offers humans the ability to modify 
the animal kingdom to our benefit. 
Wilmut said the most important sheep in Edinburgh nowadays is not 
Dolly but Polly -- cloned and genetically transformed, and whose milk 
contains a protein called ATT which could be useful in treating human lung 
disease such as cystic fibrosis and emphysema. ATT is otherwise scarce and 
expensive. 
There are countless other potential medical uses. If human genes are 
added to those of a pig, for example, humans in need of new organs may be 
able to receive them without the rejection that often plagues the process.. 
"There's so much more still to come. All of these diseases like cystic 
fibrosis are very unpleasant, and if we can contribute treatments to some, 
then great." 
BIGGEST RISK IS FEAR WILL STOP RESEARCH 
Wilmut insists the biggest risk of the cloning breakthroughs is that 
fear caused by such ideas -- and public mistrust of science's hermetic 
complexity -- will some day prompt governments and companies to restrict 
research. 
"My anxiety if anything is that we don't take the opportunities...that 
we are too hesitant," he said. 
"I think people have lost confidence in science, and tend to take it 
for granted. They think as if all the medical treatments that we have now 
have been here all the time, and were not the result of research." 
Wilmut said the book also highlights the almost haphazard, chaotic 
nature of scientific research that is largely the rule rather than the 
exception. 
"Research is a more chaotic sort of progress. You have to go on 
lifting stones to see what's under there because you have no idea which one 
will offer something that works. 
"We need very ambitious and curious research, because you don't know 
where it's going, but then thoughtful and cautious application," he added.. 
Wilmut also defended the U.S.-based Geron Corp which recently won the 
first two patents in Britain on the cloning technology used to make Dolly.. 
"There is reasonable concern about the idea of patenting a process, 
but the commercial benefits of a patent brings in the needed money to bring 
forward the research," he said.
========================================
3
 The New York Times <=1> View Related Topics January 24, 
> 2000, Monday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section C; Page 
> 9; Column 4; Business/Financial Desk LENGTH: 214 words 
> HEADLINE: Britain Grants Embryo Cloning Patent BODY: 
> Britain last week became the first country in the world to 
> grant a patent covering cloned early-stage human embryos. 
> 
> The decision could ignite new controversy among 
> biotechnology critics even though the Geron Corporation, 
> the company licensed to use the patent, has no intention of 
> creating cloned humans. The British patent covers both the 
> cloning process made famous by the creation of Dolly, the 
> cloned sheep, and some of the products of that process. 
> 
> Those products include nonhuman mammals and human embryos 
> in the very early stage of development, when they consist 
> of stem cells that could develop into any sort of human 
> tissue. Geron, based in Blacksburg, Va., hopes to use the 
> technology to help those suffering from degenerative 
> diseases -- in theory, instead of getting a liver 
> transplant that might be rejected, a person could be saved 
> with new tissue grown from his or her own cells. Geron and 
> its technology partners have applied for United States 
> patents covering the technology, but that application does 
> not cover human embryo products, David J. Earp, Geron's 
> vice president for intellectual property, said. The 
> Constitution's ban on slavery bars patenting human clones, 
> but the law is not clear on the patentability of early-stage 
> embryotic material. <http://www.nytimes.com/>http://www.nytimes.com
=========================================================
> 4
The San Francisco Chronicle JANUARY 24, 2000, MONDAY, 
> FINAL EDITION SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. B1; BIOSCOPE LENGTH: 
> 1690 words HEADLINE: Double Trouble -- State Panel Grapples 
> With Ethics of Human Cloning; California's ban on procedure 
> may expire, extend in 2003 BYLINE: TOM ABATE BODY: Here's 
> another reason to be glad you live in California: This is 
> one of just three states that have, temporarily at least, 
> outlawed human cloning. OK, so maybe protection from human 
> clones isn't of top concern, but surely you'll be proud to 
> know California is the only political body in the land 
> actively studying whether -- or how -- to regulate this 
> science fiction form of procreation. "This is something 
> society has to think about and, as usual, California is 
> ahead of the pack," said Theodore Friedmann, director of 
> gene therapy research at the University of California at 
> San Diego and a member of the state-sponsored Advisory 
> Committee on Human Cloning. The 12-person panel, which has 
> met quietly three times since May, will hold an all-day 
> public meeting Thursday at Children's Hospital in Oakland. 
> 
> Committee member Margaret McLean, director of the 
> biotechnology ethics program at Santa Clara University, 
> said she feels awed by the task: giving the state a 
> recommendation next year about whether to extend a human 
> cloning ban enacted in 1997 or let it expire in 2003. "When 
> I first got the appointment letter with the blue and gold 
> seal, it was like, whoa, what a responsibility," McLean 
> said. Blame it all on Dolly, the Scottish sheep that became 
> a media darling. After Dolly's debut in 1997, Chicago 
> physicist Richard Seed fanned fears about cloning by 
> proposing to replicate himself -- something he had neither 
> the money nor the expertise to do. Stanford University law 
> Professor Hank Greely, a California cloning committee 
> member who has studied the politics of the issue, said 
> President Clinton responded to the human cloning furor by 
> issuing an executive order banning federal funds for such 
> research. Private biotech firms, unaffected by the 
> proclamation, promised not to do human clones but advocated 
> against a federal ban, which gave Congress a mandate to do 
> what Congress does so well -- fulminate while doing 
> nothing. Into this legal void stepped California. In 1997, 
> the state enacted a law making it a violation of the 
> Medical Practices Act for any corporation, research lab or 
> clinic to clone a human being. Backed by a $1 million fine 
> and loss of business license, the ban was designed to 
> expire in 2003 -- time enough for the cloning advisory 
> committee to report back to state officials on whether to 
> make it permanent. Greely said Rhode Island later enacted a 
> temporary ban modeled on the California statute, while 
> Michigan passed a permanent anti-cloning law. But only 
> California seems to have formed a committee to study human 
> cloning. At first blush, it may seem odd for a state -- 
> even a self-important state like California -- to attempt 
> to draw boundaries around itself and exclude some new 
> biomedical technology. As cloning committee member and 
> University of California at San Francisco geneticist Larry 
> Shapiro said, "It's hard to think about how you would stop 
> a train moving swiftly down the tracks even if you wanted 
> to." Ban human cloning in California and it could just move 
> to Nevada. But, as it turns out, states have traditionally 
> regulated medical safety, and when the gee whiz gets 
> stripped away, cloning has some serious issues. It seems 
> Scottish scientists used nearly 300 eggs in the process of 
> cloning Dolly. Fewer than 30 were successfully cloned and 
> implanted in surrogate sheep mothers -- some of those were 
> miscarried, others born deformed -- before cute little 
> Dolly was born. "Unfortunately in the world we live in, 
> animals are cheap and you can just throw them away," said 
> Ruth Hubbard, professor emerita of biology at Harvard 
> University, an observer of the California committee's work. 
> The qualms would undoubtedly increase if the eggs and 
> embryos were human. Still, it seems wacky that some states 
> might erect cloning speed bumps while others ignore the 
> technology's moral potholes. But Hastings law Professor 
> Radhika Rao, an expert on reproductive law and a cloning 
> committee member, said the states, not the federal 
> government, are the traffic cops for technology-assisted 
> procreation. "There is no federal law on assisted 
> reproduction -- the U.S. Supreme Court has never taken a 
> case on it," Rao said. As a result, states differ wildly on 
> issues like who is legally the parent of a baby born to a 
> surrogate mother who bears a child created by artificial 
> insemination of another woman's egg. "In some states, 
> commercial surrogacy is illegal and a criminal offense," 
> Rao said. "In other states, the contract is legal but 
> unenforceable, and in still other states, the contract is 
> both legal and enforceable." It is only after a problem 
> arises because of conflicting state laws that the U.S. 
> 
> Supreme Court steps in and sets a national standard, as 
> happened with abortion in 1973, said Rao, who once clerked 
> for Justice Harry A. Blackmun, author of the Roe vs. Wade 
> decision. So state-by-state experimentation on human 
> cloning has historical roots, odd as that may sound in our 
> techno-driven global village. I've barely given you a sense 
> of what the committee must grapple with. "What the public 
> thinks you mean by cloning is creating a carbon copy of 
> ourselves," said McLean, the Santa Clara ethicist. "It's 
> actually far more complex than that." 
> 
> Put aside, for a moment, the notion of cloning a whole 
> human and think about using the technology to make spare 
> parts. Go back to the egg, scoop out its nucleus, insert 
> the nucleus of one of your cells. That's a clone. But 
> instead of implanting the embryo into a surrogate mom and 
> letting it be born, put it into a petri dish and control 
> its development so that it only produces a heart. This 
> heart would be genetically identical to yours, let's say. 
> 
> Science might be able to do this in 15 or 25 years. Your 
> heart might be failing by then. What would you pay for a 
> heart that transplant surgeons could drop into your chest 
> the way mechanics pop in a new engine? Human cloning is far 
> more than the "Boys from Brazil." It's biotechnology meets 
> Kragen Auto parts. The Human Cloning Advisory Committee 
> will tackle all these issues and more from 9 a.m. until 4 
> p.m. on Thursday in Oakland. For more information about the 
> meeting, or to state your opinion if you can't attend, 
> contact George Cunningham with the Department of Health 
> Services in Berkeley at gcunning@dhs.ca.gov or (510) 
> 849-5102. I would have aimed you at a Web site, but it 
> doesn't exist. It seems that between the invention of the 
> fax machine and the creation of Dolly, our forward-thinking 
> state government failed to note the advent of the World 
> Wide Web and its usefulness in creating virtual forums on 
> issues of public interest. Look for BioScope every Monday 
> in the Business section. Send your bio-feedback to Tom 
> Abate by e-mail, abate@sfgate.com; fax, (415) 543-2482; or 
> phone, (415) 777-6213.
===========================================
5
AP Worldstream January 24, 2000; Monday 11:36 AM Eastern 
> Time SECTION: International news DISTRIBUTION: 
> Europe;Britian;Scandinavia;Middle 
> East;Africa;India;England;Asia LENGTH: 331 words HEADLINE: 
> AP Photos BYLINE: SHIHOKO GOTO DATELINE: TOKYO BODY: 
> Japanese scientists have successfully bred two generations 
> of cloned bulls, the first time a large animal has been 
> recloned, researchers said Monday. The breeding of the calf 
> born Sunday night is part of a project to study the life 
> expectancy and aging of cloned animals, scientists at the 
> Kagoshima Prefectural Cattle Breeding Development Institute 
> said. The three generations of the genetically identical 
> bulls the original animal and the two clones are being 
> studied at the institute, in southern Japan. ''There is 
> speculation that cloned animals may not be as healthy or 
> live as long as normal animals,'' said Norio Tabara, one of 
> the research scientists involved in the project. Mice have 
> been successfully recloned in the United States, but the 
> Japanese researchers said no larger animals had been 
> recloned. In the re-cloning, skin tissue from the ear of 
> the first- generation cloned bull was taken in April, when 
> it was four months old. Those cells were fused with an 
> unfertilized egg that had been stripped of its nucleus. 
> 
> That was then placed in the uterus of a surrogate mother 
> cow, which led to the birth of a 44-kilogram (96.8 pound) 
> male calf. A second recloned animal produced by the 
> institute is expected to be born by late March. Despite the 
> possible research benefits, the primary purpose of the 
> project is to produce tasty beef. ''Our objective is to 
> produce good cows consistently,'' said Tabara. ''If there 
> is a stud cow that's of the highest quality, we want that 
> cow to be available more widely.'' Cloning also reduces the 
> amount of time needed for breeding. The tissue of an animal 
> as young as three months can be used for cloning, while 
> cattle do not mate naturally until they are about 14 months 
> old. Cloned beef is already on sale in Japanese 
> supermarkets, although the government's announcement in 
> April that it had allowed cloned beef to be sold unmarked 
> for at least two years sparked a beef boycott nationwide. 
> 
================================================================
6
The Gazette (Montreal) January 24, 2000, Monday, FINAL 
> SECTION: News; A8 LENGTH: 570 words HEADLINE: 
> Lactose-intolerant?: Moose may be key BYLINE: LAURA LANDON 
> DATELINE: QUEBEC BODY: A Canadian researcher says the moose 
> may be Canada's ticket to a wealth of cheese and milk 
> that's easy on the belly. Francois Pothier of Laval 
> University says that by inserting a moose gene into a cow, 
> he can produce low-lactose milk. Using the same process, he 
> says he can also increase the milk's kappa casein content 
> and yield more cheese per litre of milk. The process, 
> however, has more to do with gene patents than moose milk. 
> 
> Pothier's idea of changing a cow's milk to make it more 
> digestible by humans is popular with researchers across the 
> globe, he says. So when he went to use the cow gene he 
> needed to begin his research, he found a researcher at the 
> University of Texas had beaten him to the punch: The gene 
> was patented, and it would cost hundreds of thousands of 
> dollars a year to use it. ''There is really a nightmare in 
> that field, and the problems are coming from the United 
> States,'' said Pothier. Instead, he looked to a Canadian 
> alternative: the moose. Moose DNA Modifies Milk By adding a 
> sequence of moose DNA (culled from kidneys obtained during 
> hunting season) to a cow gene, Pothier says he can create 
> his own unique gene sequence, bypassing a tangle of patent 
> laws. And then he can create his wonder-milk, he says. 
> 
> Transgenic animals carry genes inserted by humans. Canada 
> is a few years away from its first transgenic cow, he says. 
> At roughly $500,000 a head, there are only a few in the 
> world. For now, Pothier milks the comparatively cheaper 
> (and easier to handle) $2,000 transgenic mouse. Each mouse 
> embryo is injected with a moose and a cow gene. When the 
> female transgenic mouse matures to lactation, it gives 1.5 
> millilitres per milking -enough for both Pothier's research 
> and her own offspring. Pothier milks the mice manually, 
> using a tiny tube. Within the next few years, Pothier hopes 
> to transfer the moose-gene sequence to the bovine world, 
> thus creating cows that give up to 40 litres of modified 
> milk per day. ''I think it's an intelligent way to modify 
> the meals we eat,'' said Pothier, who adds that the 
> presence of a moose gene in a cow should sit better with a 
> critical public than, for instance, the presence of a fish 
> gene in a tomato. ''If we can prove that we didn't add 
> anything to the milk - that we just reduced its lactose - I 
> think it will be acceptable,'' he said. Roughly 25 per cent 
> of North Americans suffer from lactose- intolerance, 
> inability to properly digest cow's milk. Symptoms include 
> cramps, bloating and gas after eating dairy products. 
> 
> Over-the-counter remedies, such as Lactaid, can cost about 
> $20 for 100 pills. Pothier says producing easy-to- digest 
> milk straight from the source is a cheap, clever 
> alternative, although he's not sure at this point how much a 
> litre of modified milk would cost. Next Step: Cheese From 
> Mice His research into high-kappa-casein-producing cows, 
> however, could be a boon to the dairy industry and 
> consumers alike, he says. Kappa casein is the protein 
> responsible for turning milk to cheese. Sometime next year, 
> he hopes to test the process by making cheese from modified 
> mouse milk. He'll address a national dairy conference in 
> Ottawa next week. Delegates from more than 130 countries 
> are meeting in Montreal this week to try to hammer out, 
> under UN sponsorship, what's called a Biosafety Protocol to 
> govern, among other things, genetically modified foods. 
> 
======================================================
7
The Toronto Star January 24, 2000, Monday, Edition 1 
> SECTION: NEWS LENGTH: 450 words HEADLINE: SYNTHETIC DNA MAY 
> SPAWN DESIGNER HUMANS BODY: Jonathan Leake and Roger Dobson 
> LONDON - Scientists have made the world's first synthetic 
> DNA, the molecules that form the blueprint for life. The 
> breakthrough means that the first artificial organisms 
> could be ''born'' within two years and raises the prospect 
> of humans redesigning species, including themselves. The 
> DNA was created at the University of Texas where researchers 
> have mapped out the exact way it will be configured to 
> create synthetic organism one (SO1) , the microbe destined 
> to be the world's first man-made creature. Professor Glen 
> Evans, director of the university's genome science and 
> technology centre, said the world's first synthetic 
> organism ''will have no specific function but once it is 
> alive we can customize it. We can go back to the computer 
> and change a gene and create other new life forms by simply 
> pressing a button.'' The researchers are planning to create 
> a series of designer bugs, with super- efficient mechanisms 
> for infecting target tissues such as cancer tumours and 
> then killing them. Some would infect the human gut to 
> produce vitamin C. Scientists 'playing God,' critics say 
> Evans believes that man will one day be able to create 
> complex life forms. For now, however, the first benefit 
> could be simpler. ''Humans need, but cannot make vitamin C 
> because we lack one particular enzyme,'' he said. ''If we 
> put that enzyme into one of our artificial organisms and 
> drink it, the bug will live in our guts making vitamin C 
> forever.'' Critics, however, have warned the scientists 
> risk unleashing a microbe master race with increased powers 
> to infect humans and wildlife. Tony Juniper, policy and 
> campaigns director of Friends of the Earth, said the bugs 
> could present a serious threat to human health and the 
> environment. ''Scientists have already unleashed 
> genetically modified organisms and we are now seeing the 
> damage they can do. Playing God by creating entirely new 
> life forms could have very serious consequences which 
> should be publicly and fully debated.'' Michael Reiss, a 
> specialist in bioethics at Cambridge University in England, 
> said he would become concerned only if such life became 
> sentient. ''In the 19th century people thought there was 
> some vital essence to life and there was real controversy 
> when the first organic compounds were made. My own view is 
> that DNA is just an extension of that process.'' The 
> researchers' success lies in having found a way to create 
> long chains of DNA. Such chains are made up of four types 
> of molecules which join up in twosomes known as ''base 
> pairs,'' which then link to form a ladder that twists into 
> the DNA double helix. LONDON SUNDAY TIMES 
==========================================================
> 8
Associated Press. January 22, 2000, Saturday, AM cycle 
> SECTION: State and Regional LENGTH: 448 words HEADLINE: 
> Leaked report backs up claim that farmed fish hurt wild 
> stocks BYLINE: By TOM SPEARS, Ottawa Citizen DATELINE: 
> OTTAWA BODY: Escaped fish from salmon farms have indeed 
> damaged Canada's fragile stock of wild salmon by 
> interbreeding with them, admits an internal Fisheries 
> Department report. The report, prepared for next week's 
> meeting of Canada's advisory committee on Atlantic salmon 
> in Montreal, backs up the claims of conservation groups. 
> 
> Damage has already occurred, says the draft report 
> obtained by the Ottawa Citizen. The report comes shortly 
> after a statement by Yves Bastien, Canada's commissioner of 
> aquaculture, that there is no evidence farmed fish cause 
> genetic disruption to wild Atlantic salmon. U.S. federal 
> fish agencies have already warned that interbreeding 
> between wild and domestic fish is weakening the gene pool 
> of salmon in the Gulf of Maine. The Canadian report notes 
> that all Atlantic salmon are not genetically the same. Each 
> local population of fish has its own distinct genetic 
> fingerprints, which are important because they allow salmon 
> to adapt to local conditions. For instance, the salmon 
> native to a river that melts in early spring will need 
> spawning instincts that are different from salmon in a river 
> where the ice goes out much later. The fish are also 
> adapted to different acidity levels in different rivers. 
> 
> "Genetic differences have been observed between wild and 
> cultured (farmed) salmon," the report says. The greatest 
> differences are between farmed fish originally from 
> European stock and wild fish native to North America. "Wild 
> and escaped domesticated Atlantic salmon can interbreed, 
> and in some cases escaped domesticated salmon form the 
> majority of fish in the spawning population," the report 
> says. A cross between wild and domesticated salmon does 
> nothing good for the wild fish. "There is evidence to 
> indicate that there has been a reduction of fitness in the 
> wild populations in the short terms when wild and domestic 
> salmonids have interbred." (Salmonids are fish in the 
> salmon family, including trout). This point is "the central 
> issue of concern," the report says. The report quotes a 
> 1997 study that says the smolts (young salmon) born from 
> escaped salmon, and from hybrids of wild and domestic 
> salmon, are less likely to survive than wild fish. However, 
> the study notes, the domestic and hybrid fish grow faster 
> in their early months of life than young wild salmon. This 
> allows them to crowd out the wild fish in the competition 
> for food and survival. Greenpeace argues the salmon are a 
> perfect example of the environmental dangers of genetically 
> modified foods. Greater than the danger from simple farmed 
> fish is the danger that some day genetically engineered 
> salmon will escape, says Miranda Holmes of Greenpeace. 
> 
======================================================
> 9
APws 01/24 1135 Japanese scientists breed world's first 
> recloned cow By SHIHOKO GOTO Associated Press Writer TOKYO 
> (AP) -- Japanese scientists have successfully bred two 
> generations of cloned bulls, the first time a large animal 
> has been recloned, researchers said Monday. The breeding of 
> the calf -- born Sunday night -- is part of a project to 
> study the life expectancy and aging of cloned animals, 
> scientists at the Kagoshima Prefectural Cattle Breeding 
> Development Institute said. The three generations of the 
> genetically identical bulls -- the original animal and the 
> two clones -- are being studied at the institute, in 
> southern Japan. "There is speculation that cloned animals 
> may not be as healthy or live as long as normal animals," 
> said Norio Tabara, one of the research scientists involved 
> in the project. Mice have been successfully recloned in the 
> United States, but the Japanese researchers said no larger 
> animals had been recloned. In the re-cloning, skin tissue 
> from the ear of the first-generation cloned bull was taken 
> in April, when it was four months old. Those cells were 
> fused with an unfertilized egg that had been stripped of 
> its nucleus. That was then placed in the uterus of a 
> surrogate mother cow, which led to the birth of a 
> 44-kilogram (96.8 pound) male calf. A second recloned animal 
> produced by the institute is expected to be born by late 
> March. Despite the possible research benefits, the primary 
> purpose of the project is to produce tasty beef. "Our 
> objective is to produce good cows consistently," said 
> Tabara. "If there is a stud cow that's of the highest 
> quality, we want that cow to be available more widely." 
> 
> Cloning also reduces the amount of time needed for 
> breeding. The tissue of an animal as young as three months 
> can be used for cloning, while cattle do not mate naturally 
> until they are about 14 months old. Cloned beef is already 
> on sale in Japanese supermarkets, although the government's 
> announcement in April that it had allowed cloned beef to be 
> sold unmarked for at least two years sparked a beef boycott 
> nationwide. (sg-jc-jlh) Executive News Svc. 
===================================================
10 Clone of Cloned Bull Bred in Japan By 
> SHIHOKO GOTO Associated Press Writer TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese 
> scientists have produced the clone of a cloned bull, the 
> first time a large cloned animal has itself been cloned, 
> researchers said Monday. The calf born Sunday night is part 
> of a project to study the life expectancy and aging of 
> cloned animals, scientists at the Kagoshima Prefectural 
> Cattle Breeding Development Institute said. The three 
> generations of genetically identical bulls -- the original 
> animal and the two clones -- are being studied at the 
> institute in southern Japan. "There is speculation that 
> cloned animals may not be as healthy or live as long as 
> normal animals," said Norio Tabara, one of the research 
> scientists involved in the project. Researchers in the 
> United States have successfully produced clones of cloned 
> mice. In Japan, skin tissue was taken from the ear of a 
> cloned bull last April when the animal was 4 months old. 
> 
> Those cells were fused with an unfertilized egg that had 
> been stripped of its nucleus and placed in the womb of a 
> cow. The resulting bull calf weighed nearly 100 pounds at 
> birth. The primary purpose of the institute's project is to 
> produce tasty beef. "Our objective is to produce good 
> cattle consistently," said Tabara. "If there is a stud 
> that's of the highest quality, we want that bull to be 
> available more widely." 
> 
> Cloning also reduces the amount of time needed for 
> reproduction. The tissues of an animal as young as three 
> months can be used for cloning, while cows do not mate 
> naturally until they are about 14 months old. Cloned beef 
> is already on sale in Japanese supermarkets, although the 
> government's announcement last April that it had allowed 
> cloned beef to be sold unmarked for at least two years 
> sparked a beef boycott nationwide. Robert Foote, professor 
> emeritus of animal physiology at Cornell University, said 
> the latest cloning advance is important for molecular 
> biology and may help answer questions about the aging of 
> clones. There have been suggestions that an animal cloned 
> from a cell of a 6-year-old would be "genetically 6 years 
> old when born," he said. Foote said that supposition needs 
> further study. 
======================================================================
> 11
XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE T January 25, 
> 2000, Tuesday 6:53 AM Eastern Time SECTION: DOMESTIC NEWS; 
> SCIENCE, CULTURAL, EDUCATION, HEALTH LENGTH: 136 words 
> HEADLINE: China Successfully Clones Goats From Somatic 
> Cells of Genetically Altered Goat DATELINE: NANJING, 
> January 25 BODY: Chinese scientists have successfully 
> cloned two goats from somatic, or adult cells taken from a 
> four-year-old genetically modified goat, a procedure which 
> was listed as one of the nation's top-10 scientific 
> research discoveries of 1999. Researchers injected the 
> nuclei of granulous cells taken from on the ovary of the 
> donor black female goat into enucleated oocytes of a group 
> of white goats. In the lab, the re- constructed eggs 
> developed into embryos, which were then implanted into 
> surrogate mother goats. At a result, two lambs were created 
> by this nuclear transfer technology, and they are also 
> female and black, the same as the donor goat. This success 
> was jointly achieved by a research institute under the 
> China Academy of Sciences and Yangzhou University in 
> Jiangsu Province.
====================================================
> 12
The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo) January 25, 2000, Tuesday 
> SECTION: Pg. 1 LENGTH: 438 words HEADLINE: Recloned bullock 
> born in Kagoshima institute BYLINE: Yomiuri DATELINE: 
> KAGOSHIMA BODY: Researchers announced Monday that they had 
> succeeded in cloning a cloned bull from skin cells at the 
> Kagoshima Prefectural Cattle Breeding Development 
> Institute, the world's first second-generation clone of a 
> large mammal. There is high expectation that the recloning 
> will help researchers find out about the life span of 
> clones, as they will now be able to closely monitor the 
> three generations of bulls with the same genes. Researchers 
> also hope that the successful recloning will lead to the 
> mass production of high-quality cattle. The experiment 
> effectively paves the way for developing the mass-production 
> technology needed to use cells from cattle to produce any 
> number of clones, like separating the roots of a plant for 
> multiplication. The bullock, slightly heavy at 44 
> kilograms, was born at 10:35 p.m. Sunday at the institute, 
> which is located in Osumi, Kagoshima Prefecture. It is 
> reportedly in good condition. The first-generation bulls 
> were cloned using the cells of a 16-year-old bull. Skin 
> cells from the first-generation clones were taken from 
> their ears last spring when they were 3 to 4 months old and 
> transplanted in unfertilized eggs from which the nucleus 
> had been removed. The eggs were then implanted in the wombs 
> of several surrogate cows. Another second-generation clone 
> is due in late March, researchers said. Numerous cloning 
> experiments have been conducted, particularly since the 
> Roslin Institute at Edinburgh University in collaboration 
> with PPL Therapeutics in Scotland succeeded in cloning a 
> sheep, called Dolly, in 1997. In July 1998, the world's 
> first calf cloned from cells was born at a livestock center 
> in Ishikawa Prefecture. According to the Agriculture, 
> Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, 107 cloned cattle had been 
> born in Japan as of the end of November 1999. Of them, 59 
> are still alive. The University of Hawaii succeeded in 
> recloning mice in 1997, but it is said that the techniques 
> involved in cloning different species differ slightly from 
> each other. "It is significant that the recloning 
> technology has been used to produce cattle, which are 
> commercially viable," said Prof. Hiroshi Imai of Kyoto 
> University. There are still many mysteries surrounding 
> cloned animals, including their life spans, but the 
> comparison of cells and chromosomes between the three 
> generations of bulls may provide clues to help solve such 
> mysteries, researchers said. "We would like to gather basic 
> data from DNA analyses of the three generations of bulls as 
> well as those on their development to further our 
> research," said Takaharu Yoshiya, chief of the institute. 
========================================================
>13 International Herald Tribune (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) 
> January 25, 2000, Tuesday SECTION: News; Pg. 4 LENGTH: 295 
> words HEADLINE: U.S. Halts All of Institute's Gene Therapy 
> Tests BYLINE: New York Times Service DATELINE: WASHINGTON 
> BODY: The Food and Drug Administration has announced that 
> it is temporarily shutting down every human gene therapy 
> experiment at the University of Pennsylvania after an 
> inspection uncovered ''numerous serious deficiencies'' 
> regarding patient safety during a clinical trial that cost 
> an 18-year-old Arizona man his life. The decision to place 
> the entire program - eight experiments, including five 
> active clinical trials on diseases including cystic 
> fibrosis and breast cancer -on ''clinical hold'' is highly 
> unusual. The hold is indefinite, agency officials said, and 
> will not be lifted until the agency is convinced that the 
> university's Institute for Human Gene Therapy can follow 
> federal rules designed to protect study volunteers from 
> harm. The agency notified scientists at the university of 
> the decision in a letter Friday. In response, the 
> university president, Judith Rodin, pledged to appoint a 
> committee of outside scientists to review the work of the 
> institute. She also said that the university had 
> ''cooperated fully with all aspects of the FDA 
> investigation and would continue to do so.'' The agency 
> acted two days after its investigators completed a detailed 
> inspection of patient records and laboratory data from an 
> experiment that resulted in the death of Jesse Gelsinger of 
> Tucson, Arizona, in September. The final inspection report 
> cited 18 specific violations. It found, for example, that 
> the scientists had enrolled all 18 patients without filling 
> out eligibility forms, a routine step for complicated 
> experiments such as gene therapy. Instead, the agency said, 
> the scientists created the forms and filled them out after 
> Mr. Gelsinger died, leaving them unsigned and undated. By 
> that time, the agency's inquiry had begun. 
=======================================================
14
> The Washington Post <=1> View Related Topics January 25, 
> 2000, Tuesday, Final Edition SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A05 
> LENGTH: 918 words HEADLINE: British Patent on Cloned Human 
> Cells Raises Ethics Concerns BYLINE: Justin Gillis, 
> Washington Post Staff Writer BODY: A patent newly issued by 
> the British government appears to cover cloned human cells 
> at the earliest stages of development, when they would in 
> theory be capable of developing into a human being. The 
> patent, issued last week with little fanfare, is raising 
> fears among a handful of anti- biotechnology activists that 
> another ethical barrier has fallen, and that a nation has, 
> in effect, countenanced the patenting of human life. This 
> group, led by author and anti- biotechnology crusader 
> Jeremy Rifkin, is preparing a challenge to the British 
> patent, and will ask that it be narrowed or overturned. 
> 
> Geron Corp., the California company that controls the 
> patent, argues that it is necessary to protect the 
> company's commercial interests. Ultimately, scientists hope 
> to use the cells of sick people to grow replacement organs, 
> such as hearts and livers, for them. Geron acknowledges the 
> technique would produce a microscopic ball of cloned cells 
> that might be capable, briefly, of developing into a human 
> baby--but only if transplanted into the womb of a surrogate 
> mother, something the company says it has no intention of 
> doing. "Does Geron intend to have Aldous Huxley baby 
> farms?" said David J. Earp, Geron's vice president of 
> intellectual property, repeating a reporter's query. "No." 
> 
> Geron has a patent application pending in the United 
> States. Beyond saying that it covers cloning of non-human 
> mammals, the company refuses to specify precisely what is 
> in that application. "Geron will provide further 
> information . . . upon issuance of the patent," the company 
> said in a recent statement. The British patent grew out of 
> the same line of research that created Dolly, the cloned 
> sheep. It is one of two patents the British government has 
> issued covering techniques and "compositions of matter" 
> developed during the Dolly research, led by Keith Campbell 
> and Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Scotland. Roslin 
> licensed the technology for most purposes to a commercial 
> spinoff that was ultimately bought by Geron, a Menlo Park, 
> Calif., company known for its research on aging and 
> regenerative medicine. The license prohibits the use of 
> cloning technology for human reproduction. Britain, unlike 
> the United States, does not have a vigorous community of 
> antiabortion activists willing to argue that human life 
> begins when a sperm fertilizes an egg. British law 
> explicitly permits research on human embryos up through a 
> very early stage of development, the blastocyst stage, when 
> the embryo is still a thin, microscopic ball of cells. The 
> Roslin patent covers cloned human cells through this stage. 
> Earp noted that the patent merely protects the company from 
> encroachment by competitors in a field the company may or 
> may not succeed in commercializing. The patent does not, he 
> said, confer permission to engage in human cloning. Most 
> countries have laws against human cloning or, as in the 
> United States, have declared it to be illegal under 
> existing regulations. Geron has repeatedly said that human 
> cloning would be immoral. Still, Rifkin and his allies 
> believe the new patent crosses an ethical line. While 
> Roslin's scientists limited their claim to the earliest 
> stages of development, Rifkin and his attorney said they 
> see no reason that existing law in the United States, to 
> say nothing of Britain, would not permit patent claims on 
> human babies up through birth. (At the moment of birth, all 
> sides agree, babies acquire full human rights.) 
> 
> Rifkin wants a prohibition on patents of embryonic cells 
> written into law in this country and overseas. "Can you 
> hold a human being as 'intellectual property' from 
> conception to birth?" Rifkin said yesterday. "That's the 
> issue here. The door is open." He said he would request 
> congressional hearings. Earp, the Geron vice president, 
> does not see the matter so starkly. He noted that success 
> in developing and commercializing the technology would save 
> lives. "Many people die every year waiting for organ 
> transplants," he said. Cloning, however, is still 
> inefficient and a long way, perhaps decades, from 
> commercial use in producing organs. Patents generally come 
> into play when a competitor tries to sell a product based 
> on a company's proprietary technology. While the current 
> cloning technique requires creating the equivalent of an 
> embryo, Earp said researchers are working to understand 
> what is going on inside cloned cells. That might ultimately 
> permit them, for instance, to use a person's skin cells to 
> create a new liver without having the cells pass through an 
> intermediate "embryonic" stage. "We are," Earp said, "on 
> the cutting edge not only of law but of science." Patents 
> on living organisms, from cell lines to improved plants and 
> animals, have long been issued routinely in the United 
> States and other countries. The patents include specialized 
> human cells, such as cancer cells valued in the laboratory 
> for their ability to reproduce forever. The U.S. Supreme 
> Court decided in 1980 that a genetically engineered life 
> form, namely a bacterium capable of breaking down oil 
> spills, could be patented. The new Roslin patent appears to 
> be an incremental further step, for the first time covering 
> a type of cell known to be capable of growing into an 
> entire human being. Staff researcher Richard Drezen 
> contributed to this report. A calf that was born Sunday 
> night in Japan was cloned from a cloned bull, the first 
> time a large animal has been produced in such a process, 
> researchers said yesterday.
===================================



signature:
Genetic Engineering Network 
Requests for information as well as general enquiries should be sent to the 
GEN office - 
<info@genetix.freeserve.co.uk> 
To subscribe or send information for submission to the 
GEN - INFO 4 ACTION - email lists only- contact:
<genetics@gn.apc.org>
email archived as info4action -
<<http://www.gene.ch/info4action.html>http://www.gene.ch/info4action.html>