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The work has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but Lu Guangxiu of the Xiangya Medical College revealed details of her work in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Experts who are familiar with Guangxiu's work say three or four other Chinese labs have made similar or greater strides forward.

A team based at Shanghai No. 2 Medical University claims to have derived stem cells from hybrid embryos composed of human cells and rabbit eggs. Xiangzhong "Jerry" Yang, a Chinese-born cloning scientist now at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, says he has been aware of the advances being made in China for a long time.

"These are credible people," he says. "I've encouraged them to publish in peer-reviewed journals so that they receive credit and the world knows about their accomplishments."

Many cloning scientists are concerned that while research in the US and the UK has been slowed by political and ethical concerns, it is moving right along elsewhere, and this announcement makes their concerns that much more serious. "It takes the air out of the argument that by passing laws here we can stop the technology from moving forward," says Robert Lanza of Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology.

In 1998, researchers in South Korea claimed to have grown a cloned embryo to the four-cell stage before destroying it. And Clonaid, a company set up by a UFO cult, also claims to be making advances. Also, Lanza's ACT recently published a journal paper on cloning human embryos with the intention of harvesting embryonic stem cells (ESCs), but that proved impossible since their embryos only divided into a few cells.

Lu's team is claiming to have grown their embryos to a 200-cell "blastocyst" stage, large enough to harvest ESCs. Lanza says he is not at all surprised his Chinese competitors have made such progress.

"Cloning is a numbers game," says Lanza. "They had access to far greater numbers." In cloning, a cell is fused with an egg from which genetic material is taken. The difficulty of obtaining human eggs and informed consent in the US meant that ACT could only construct 19 embryos for their experiment.

However, regulations are much less restrictive in China. Lu, the director of a large fertility clinic, simply asked some of the dozens of women who walked through her door each day to donate their leftover eggs. She claims that five percent of her cloned embryos develop to blastocysts. Her team has harvested what they believe are ESCs and grown them for three generations in the laboratory.

ESCs are able to develop into any cell type in the body. If verified, the work is a major step forward, but it is not yet clear whether the cells they have grown are of any medical value, or indeed if they are ESCs.

Many human cells can grow in the laboratory for several generations. To convince other scientists she has found ESCs, Lu will need to grow the cells through many more cycles, perhaps for as long as a year. She will also need to verify the cells have the molecular signatures of ESCs.

Source: Nature
Cosmiverse Staff Writer