Dolly’s creators clone pigs

[Guest guest]

March 14 — The group that created Dolly the sheep, the world’s first clone of

an adult mammal, has produced the first cloned pigs, raising hopes of a new

source of transplants for humans.

 

PPL THERAPEUTICS, which cloned Dolly three years ago, said today that five

healthy piglets were born March 5 in Blacksburg, Va. They were cloned from an

adult sow using a slightly different technique than the one that produced Dolly.

 

Independent tests of the DNA of the piglets — named Millie, Christa, Alexis,

Carrel and Dotcom — confirmed they were clones of the sow, the company said.

Scientists have been studying pigs for several years as potential organ donors

for people. The cloning might hold out hope that pigs could be genetically

engineered so that their organs or cells would be more readily accepted by the

human body, making them more easily transplantable.

 

“I think this is a big step forward they’ve made. I applaud it,” said Dr. Fritz

Bach of Harvard Medical School, who studies genetic and immunological aspects of

transplants from animals to people.

 

Genetic engineering is one potential benefit, Bach said. In addition, scientists

could simply clone pigs that prove exceptionally well-suited for transplants to

humans, he said. But Bach stressed that ethical issues about animal-to-human

transplants, mainly the risk of introducing new germs to humans, must be solved

before such procedures are done.

 

Imutran, a Cambridge, England-based company that is pursuing similar research,

called PPL’s announcement “interesting news.”

 

“It is potentially a useful technology to develop new lines of pigs for

(transplant),” the company said. “However, the next step is to see if the

technology can be applied to developing genetically modified animals whose

organs can be transplanted into humans without being rejected.”

 

PPL, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, said transplantation of genetically altered

pig organs could be tested on humans in four years and that analysts believe the

market for them could be worth $6 billion.

 

PPL scientists plan to try to “knock out” a gene responsible for incorporating

in pig cells a sugar group recognized by the human immune system as foreign. The

gene triggers an immune response in the human body, prompting it to reject the

organ.

 

Three new genes would then be introduced into the pig cells, and the transplant

patient would receive a blood transfusion containing modified cells taken from

the pig supplying the organ. Scientists hope this process will reduce long-term

rejection of the transplanted organ.

 

“All the known technical hurdles have been overcome,” said Ron James, PPL’s

managing director. “It is now a case of combining the various strategies into

one male and one female pig and breeding from these.”

 

The idea of using animal organs for transplant, known as xenotransplantation, is

controversial because some believe diseases could cross from pigs to humans. But

scientists are excited by the prospect of using animal organs for transplant

because of the shortage of human organs.

 

Many people die while waiting for a transplant, and experts hope that pigs will

be able to provide a steady supply of organs.

 

“An end to the chronic organ shortage is now in sight,” James said.

 

The names of the first cloned piglets each have their own significance. Millie

was named for the millennium. Christa, Alexis and Carrel were named after Dr.

Christiaan Barnard, who performed the first human heart transplant, and Dr.

Alexis Carrel, who won the Nobel prize in 1912 for his work in the field of

transplantation.

 

And as for Dotcom ...

“Any association with dotcoms right now seems to have a very positive influence

on a company’s valuation,” said James.

 

 

 

(Interesting how the ethical issue raised was about the risk of introducing new

germs to humans. Sick sick sick!)

 

http://www.msnbc.com/news/382040.asp

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