Monash University looks to receive Australia's first cloning licence

by Rich Bowden - Jun 9 2008, 00:08

The prestigious Monash University is seeking to become the first institution in Australia to be granted a licence to clone human embryo cells for stem-cell research.

Image: Human embryonic stem (hES) cell colony on a mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) feeder layer. Credit: Public Domain

The university is vying with the Australian Stem Cell Centre to be awarded the right to conduct therapeutic cloning under legislation which came into effect last year. The government's National Health and Medical Research Council met in the nation's capital on Friday to begin examining the proposals of the two institutions.Monash University's immunology and stem cell laboratory director, Professor Richard Boyd, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that the research would be instrumental in helping medical understanding of such diseases as diabetes, cancer and multiple sclerosis (MS). He added though that there are strict guidelines for any therapeutic cloning research."It's completely forbidden to implant this so-called embryo into anybody for the purposes of growing a new human ... that is completely against the law and will not happen," he told the ABC. "In fact as soon as this embryonic form is created it basically is an egg which has been implanted with the nucleus ... it's a mature cell so there's no sperm egg fusion at all in this."Prof. Boyd added the new technology was groundbreaking and said the licence to study stem cell technology could put Australia at the head of world research in this field."...we are cloning a part of the patient's skin or the disease so the purpose is to understand what has gone wrong in the disease process in that patient and ultimately to try and create new therapies for that specific disease," he said."This is the sort of technology we need to bring Australia in line with the rest of the world for a start, and hopefully push us to the very forefront."

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Monash University looks to receive Australia's first cloning licence

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