Independent Perspective News - First human clone embryo ready for implantation

The first human cloned embryo could be implanted into a surrogate mother's womb before the end of the year, US fertility expert Panayiotis Zavos claimed on Monday.

The attempt follows months of "practising" in the lab on hundreds of hybrid embryos made by fusing human cells with empty cow eggs, Zavos told a press conference in London.

If the human pregnancy proceeds and goes to term, the baby will be a girl, he adds.

"We've created the first human embryo for reproductive purposes," says Zavos, director of the Andrology Institute of America and associate director of the Kentucky Center for Reproductive Medicine and IVF.

Zavos says that the frozen human embryo should have been implanted in July, but the surrogate mother developed complications which meant that the attempt had to be postponed. But it's still "on the agenda this year", he says.

"The announcement has no scientific merit - its pure hype," says Bob Lanza, scientific director at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Human-cow embryos

Zavos says he created the human cloned embryo by fusing an empty human egg with a granulosa cell, an exclusively female cell which nourishes and protects oocytes as they grow in the ovary.

The embryo, which was frozen after growing to a ball of eight to 10 cells, was created after Zavos had experimented for months with hybrid embryos made by fusing human cells with empty cow oocytes.

To make female hybrids, he fuses the empty cow oocytes with granulosa cells from women. And to make male hybrids, he fuses the empty cow oocytes with differentiated forms of fibroblast skin cells taken from men.

He claims to have attempted this with 600 to 700 cow eggs, and successfully created around 200 human-cow embryos. "Our replication and duplication is remarkable," he said. "We have a 40 per cent success rate".

"It's teaching us how to refine the system to a point where we can use it in humans," said Zavos, adding that he planned to disclose more at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine's annual meeting in Texas in October. He says that he has submitted his results for publication to the online journal, Reproductive BioMedicine.

Creating monsters

Zavos rejected any suggestion that the hybrids were unethical. "We're not interested in creating monsters," he says. "We have no intention of taking them above the blastocyst stage of about 100 cells, and no intention of transferring any to term."

He says that his team had pioneered a refinement to the fusion process, the electrical "jolt" which unites the human cell with an empty egg. He says that his system now uses two "jolts", separated by about five hours, and he was also testing chemical stimulants which trigger fusion.

Zavos stresses that once thawed in preparation for implantation, the human embryo will be thoroughly tested for chromosomal and other defects before insertion. If it proves defective, he will abandon the procedure.

But Lanza says: "It's dangerous and scientifically irresponsible to attempt human reproductive cloning, with or without chromosome testing. We've seen abnormalities and defects in almost every species cloned to date. There is no reason to think humans would be any different."

Zavos refuses to reveal the country where the procedure would take place, but says it would not be the US, the UK, France or Germany. But he denied attempting anything unlawful. "We're not lawbreakers, we're law-abiding, and intend to stay that way," he says.