Two Harvard University teams plan to produce cloned human embryos, the Boston Globe reported earlier this week. Doug Melton and Kevin Eggan are seeking permission from Harvard's stem cell research committee to make embryos carrying the genetic material of patients with type 1 diabetes, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, while George Daley and Leonard Zon are planning similar experiments to study immune deficiency and other disorders of the bone marrow, but have not yet formally sought permission.

The Harvard efforts represent the first potential attempt to clone human embryos at a US institution since a failed effort by University of California at San Francisco researchers in 2001. This February in Science, a South Korean team reported that they had produced cloned human embryos, fueling fears among US stem cell researchers and advocates that the country is losing its edge in stem cell research due to Bush administration restrictions on federal funding. In August, Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority granted the United Kingdom's first license to create human embryonic stem cells using cell nuclear replacement.

Both Harvard teams belong to the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, which the university formed earlier this year to support human stem cell research and study its ethical implications. Their work would be funded privately. "This is exactly the kind of work we envisioned" for the institute, Melton, the institute's co-director, told the Globe.

Zon has taken great care to ensure that "everything is done right" in the process of considering the experiments, Daley told The Scientist. "That means making sure that everyone in the research administration appreciates what's going on and approves of the methods and regulations for our doing the work, people in the legal office are satisfied that we're doing the right thing, people in finance are satisfied that the funding can be kept separate."

Zon added, "There are many, many different constituencies that we want to poll and learn from before we even make an application. That's taken us now almost the better part of a year. We had hoped not to have any reporting of this before we had actually gone through the process." The Globe story wasn't part of the plan, Daley said. "It really wasn't our decision. We were kind of scooped."

In 2002, Daley, Rudolf, Jaenisch, and colleagues reported correcting a genetic defect in mice using stem cells produced by nuclear transfer. Daley and Zon are planning to extend this work into human cells to make models of human genetic diseases of the bone marrow. "There's a lot of basic biology on the human system that we'd need to really advance before imagining that we'd ever go into patients," Daley told The Scientist. "The theoretical plan is very straightforward."

The research was condemned by Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. "This crosses the line of creating life in the laboratory solely to destroy it," Doerflinger told The Globe. "This is the ultimate reduction of human life as an object for others to use."

But condemnation of this research is misplaced, Daley said. "I think you really have to understand the process very intimately, and I feel that the service of medical research and the treatment of patients warrant our using nuclear transfer," he said. "Harnessing nuclear transfer to reprogram a patient's own cells to repair or regenerate their tissues and treat their disease is itself a very life-affirming process."

Stem cell researcher Eugene Redmond of Yale agreed. "These cells, with NO potential to become a human being without a willing womb, should be used to save and improve millions of lives if they can," he told The Scientist via E-mail. "It's pro-life. It's true respect for human life and dignity."