Interview on therapeutic (stem cell) cloning and reproductive cloning
Q: Are you in favour of therapeutic cloning?
A: Yes, for people with a medical indication, I am in favour. Not if it concerns cosmetic indications.
Q: Why are/aren’t you in favour of therapeutic cloning?
A: I am in favour, because there is a shortage of donor organs, hence using stem cells for therapeutic purposes would benefit numerous sick people, including young children.
Q: How are stem cells generated and have you done/seen it yourself?
A: Stem cells are present in various tissues of the human body, for example the bone marrow, skin, the central nervous system and fat. In particular human placental tissue contains a large number of (so-called hematopoietic) stem cells. I have never worked on stem cell research myself.
Q: Why are stem cells and therapeutic cloning so important for the future?
A: Stem cells are part of our physiology and needed to regenerate damaged tissue or renew cells that are getting too old in the human body, for example, skin, blood and intestinal cells. Stem cells can differentiate into different types of specialized cells, a physiological process that requires various factors to enable this. In case an injured or ill person does not have a functional organ any more, one can opt for transplantation, but that requires an available donor AND a good match in order to prevent (often life-threatening) graft-versus-host disease. If one could make use of the patient’s own stem cells to form a functional organ, that would simplify the complex transplantation protocols and circumvent all the interventions needed regarding (the prevention of) graft-versus-host disease.
Q: Is it harder to clone animal stem cells than it is to clone human stem cells, if so why?
A: I do think it is, because most often, the human body is a more complex organism than, for example, a mouse.
Q: Is therapeutic cloning funded at your facility? Why is/isn’t it funded?
A: Colleagues of mine at our department of human genetics are using “human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs)” for their research, but as far as I know, we are not involved in (funding of) therapeutic cloning. In our hospital (Radboudumc) stem cells are used for treatment, for example, see Radboud UMC.
Q: How does therapeutic cloning differ from reproductive cloning?
A: In therapeutic cloning, stem cells are used to generate a functional organ or tissue. In reproductive cloning, stem cells are used to generate an entire and complete organism, so without a true reproductive action where a paternal sperm cell and maternal oocyte fuse to form a zygote.
Q: Are you in favour of reproductive cloning?
A: No, I am not.
Q: Why are/aren’t you in favour of reproductive cloning?
A: Because I do not see the need to have reproductive cloning. Moreover, reproduction is a complex interplay, a lot more than just a fusion of a sperm and an egg. Thinks like parental imprint erasure are still incompletely understood and ignored / left out in reproductive cloning which will certainly cause problems sooner or later. The actual age of the individual cells is also of importance, as was also discussed in detail (shorter telomere length in Dolly the Sheep).
Q: Do you think there is a future for cloning?
A: I do think there is a future for cloning, but I do hope it will be restricted to therapeutic cloning. Would you like to have a clone of yourself?