Human Embryos News and Research

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RNA gene found to be one of the fastest evolving regions in human genome

Since completing the sequencing of the chimpanzee genome last year, geneticists have spent many hours comparing human DNA sequences to those of our closest evolutionary relative, looking for the differences that distinguish the two species.

16 Aug 2006

Bush adopts the so-called moral high ground and chooses to ignore scientific advice

The American President George W. Bush has used his presidential veto for the first time to block further federal taxpayers money from being used for embryonic stem-cell research.

20 Jul 2006

New technology allows women to preserve their eggs for use later

Japanese scientists have come up with a new method of preserving human embryos which will make the process of freezing them safer and more reliable.

20 Jun 2006

New highly successful method of freezing human eggs

A new and highly successful method of freezing human eggs will help to even out the current inequality between men and women.

19 Jun 2006

Bush's Draconian plan to ban stem cell research flounders as Harvard goes it alone

Scientists at Harvard University in the United States, in direct defiance of President Bush's wish to ban such research, have begun efforts to clone human embryos.

7 Jun 2006

Preimplantation cell number may affect birthweight

Dr Lieberman et al. at the Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Reproductive Biology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA have measured the quality of human embryos by counting and assessing the properties of their individual cells.

2 Feb 2006

Light at the end of the tunnel for arthritis sufferers

There is at last a light at the end of the tunnel for Arthritis sufferers.

21 Dec 2005

South Korean cloning pioneer responds to accusations

South Korean cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk has defended himself in the media following allegations over ethics violations that have seen his groundbreaking work plunged into controversy.

24 Nov 2005

Sperm stem cells research provides exciting findings

New experiments that prevented rat sperm stem cells from changing permanently into sperm have brought researchers one step closer to coaxing such cells to behave like embryonic stem cells, capable of growing into many other types of cells in the body.

20 Nov 2005

Desperate patients cause stem cell web site to crash

The web site of South Korea's new stem cell bank has crashed even before it began taking applications to take part in research.

2 Nov 2005

Analytical method to trace the lineage trees of cells

Some fundamental outstanding questions in science - "Where do stem cells originate?" "How does cancer develop?" "When do cell types split off from each other in the embryo?" - might be answered if scientists had a way to map the history of the body's cells going back to the fertilized egg.

30 Oct 2005

South Korea opens controversial international stem cell bank

South Korea has opened a bank in Seoul that will create and supply new lines of embryonic stem cells for research around the world.

19 Oct 2005

Alternative methods to create stem cells successful in mice-studies

According to researchers in the U.S. two alternative methods for making embryonic stem cells, work in mice and could lead to a less controversial way to grow them.

16 Oct 2005

New public survey on stem cells

Stem cells are unique among human cells in that they possess the uncanny ability to develop into virtually any other cell of the body, offering a hypothetical tool kit for repairing diseased hearts, mending broken spinal cords, or correcting genetic diseases, among other hoped-for benefits.

13 Oct 2005

UK fertility specialist and broadcaster says embryonic stem cell research promises are hyped up

According to a well known fertility specialist and broadcaster in the UK, the promise of embryonic stem cell research has been oversold by scientists.

5 Sep 2005

Preliminary molecular diagram of the early stages of embryo formation

A team of genomic researchers headed by biologists at New York University's Center for Comparative Functional Genomics, in collaboration with researchers at Harvard University, the Max Planck Institute, and Cenix Biosciences, has mapped out a preliminary molecular diagram of the early stages of embryo formation, offering for the first time a global look at how a single cell begins its path into a multi-cellular organism.

11 Aug 2005

Scientists successfully isolate stem cells from human skin

Scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have successfully isolated stem cells from human skin, expanded them in the laboratory and coaxed them into becoming fat, muscle and bone cells.

27 Jun 2005

Early embryos with abnormal chromosomes are capable of returning to normal when grown in culture in the laboratory

While such embryos are not capable of developing into normal foetuses if implanted in a woman's womb, the discovery has important implications for stem cell production, especially in countries where the creation of embryos for stem cell research is discouraged or even banned.

20 Jun 2005

New way of obtaining embryonic stem cells that avoids contamination by other types of cells

Scientists in the USA have discovered a new way of obtaining embryonic stem cells that avoids contamination by other types of cells and reduces the numbers of embryos needed to create embryonic stem cell lines.

20 Jun 2005

Stem cells grown in lab mirror normal developmental steps

Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a way to study the earliest steps of human blood development using human embryonic stem cells grown in a lab dish instead of the embryos themselves.

20 Jun 2005