THE CLONING OF CELLS FOR REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

The journal Cell published on May 15, 2013 a study conducted by the team of Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov , of the University of Oregon Health and Science , which was demonstrated for the first time thecloning of human somatic cells by nuclear transfer, a technique similar to that used by Ian Wilmutto create the sheep Dolly in 1996.

Mitalipov also able to obtain four lines of embryonic stem cells from blastocysts generated by cloning somatic cells, in this case human fetal fibroblasts, which showed their pluripotency after generating various cell types. This finding had proved elusive so far for Mitalipov group, which in 2007 had already achieved with somatic cells of adult macaques.

The Russian researcher, based in USA, insists that his work is oriented towards the progress of regenerative medicine , with the key objectives to develop in vitro models of disease as well as to achieve the differentiation of tissues from patients with degenerative diseases, which could then be transplanted into the same patient without risk of rejection. Research does not have any interest in human reproductive cloning, but its objective is regenerative therapy. There is still a gap between the development of blastocysts by nuclear transfer of somatic cells as a source of embryonic stem cells for therapeutic cloning, and the transferability of these blastocysts to a woman receiving a reproductive cloning , since the ability to generate embryonic stem cells unrelated to the ability of these blastocysts to generate a complete individual. In fact, it Mitalipov team, since he got the somatic cell cloning adult macaques in 2007, has tried the macaque reproductive cloning, but failed so far.

In our opinion, the progress made ​​by the team Mitalipov is a major step for research in regenerative medicine , which opens new doors for the development of therapies designed specifically to address health problems that so far it was not possible to address.