In a recent op-ed, Dr. David Prentice and Congressman Jim Banks argue that it’s time for a change in leadership at the National Institutes of Health: Dr. Francis Collins has not shown any pro-life leadership at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In fact, in an interview, Dr. Collins‘ response to a congressional letter outlining pro-life members’ […]
A recent blog posted on the science/technology website Gizmodo conducts an interesting thought experiment. The author goes back 10 years to the December, 2005, issue of Scientific American. In that issue was the “Scientific American 50” – a list of the 50 leading scientific trends for that year.
The author wanted to see what has happened, 10 years on, in realizing “the highly-touted breakthroughs of the era that would supposedly change everything.” The author writes that she chose 2005 “because 10 years seemed recent enough for continuity between scientific questions then and now but also long enough ago for actual progress. More importantly, I chose Scientific American because the magazine publishes sober assessments of science, often by scientists themselves.”
This primer on cloning examines the nature and purpose of human cloning in light of recent developments in stem cell technology. The paper points out that all cloning is reproductive and reflects on the immediate outcome of human cloning – a human embryo – while examining the terminology used by cloning advocates to obscure the facts.
In this paper, Dr. Maureen Condic of the University of Utah explains the derivation of human stem cells from cloned human embryos. Dr. Condic discuss the science and politics behind cloning and why this method is unlikely to ever be the preferred tool of regenerative medicine.