Embryonic stem cells… without creating or destroying embryos? HECK YES.

This is a fascinating article from The Telegraph about Professor Ian Wilmut’s recent announcement that he is abandoning the Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) technique for creating cloned embryos, which he pioneered over a decade ago. Wilmut, professor at the University of Edinburgh and creator of Dolly the sheep, is instead focusing on a new technique known as “de-differentiation,” currently being researched by Professor Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University. Yamanaka’s technique would result in pluripotent ESCs without the use of human eggs, and without the creation or subsequent destruction of ANY human embryos.

Here’s the article. (clicky)

Folks, this seems like (at least the beginning of) a win-win situation for the future of therapeutic cloning and genetic medicine. The fact that a “giant” like Professor Wilmut has jumped on-board with such energy and certainty, INSTEAD of pursuing the avenue accorded him by his government-issued permit to create human embryos, should speak volumes about the seriousness of de-differentiation’s potential.

This excites me to no end.

FLASH: The Monkey Could Be His OWN uncle…

In their tireless efforts to bring us closer to the fiery end of the world, American scientists, led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the Oregon National Primate Research Center of Beaverton, Oregon, are nearly ready to announce their successful cloning of primate embryos from the skin cells of adult rhesus monkeys.

Read all about it HERE. (click)

The implication, of course, is that we’re another step closer to the successful cloning of adult Homo sapiens. We are, after all, only slightly less-fuzzy primates ourselves.

I’ll keep you posted, dear readers, on any ensuing wrath of God. While you wait, try doing what I do to pass the time: use the letters in “Beaverton, Oregon” to try to spell out “Armageddon.” Or sit in a room and type some Shakespeare through random keystrokes, whatever.

UPDATE: It’s worse than we all thought.  See this exclusive photo:

Hell in a handbasket, my pretties…   And your little dog too.