X-Message-Number: 7773
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 15:08:56 MST
From: "Richard Schroeppel" <>
Subject: Sheep cryonics
SCIENTIST SAY SHEEP CLONE PROVES IT IS POSSIBLE TO CLONE THE FROZEN
DEAD
Copyright © 1997 Nando.net
Copyright © 1997 Agence France-Presse
LONDON (Feb 26, 1997 6:54 p.m. EST) - The successful cloning of a
sheep proves it is possible to clone dead humans who have been frozen
according to strict guidelines, the Scottish reseachers who
cloned the animal said Wednesday.
A seven-month-old sheep called Dolly -- cloned from mammary cells
and named after the American country singer Dolly Parton -- was
revealed to the world earlier this week as the first clone of an
adult animal.
But no mention was made until Wednesday that freezing was part of
the process used to carry out the cloning by scientists at the Roslin
Institute and PPL Therapeutics in Edinburgh.
Then Ron James, PPL's managing director, told Sky television news:
'The cells from which Dolly was produced were, in fact, at one stage
frozen.'
Scientists on the Roslin Institute team had previously warned there
was 'no way that we can clone from a frozen animal or human.'
However, they said Wednesday that this referred to animals or
humans placed straight into freezers after their deaths.
They added that human cells subjected to controlled freezing, using
special protective chemicals like those used with Dolly, could
technically be cloned, bringing the image of the person -- if not
their personality -- back to life.
Geneticist Patrick Dixon said after James made his comments on Sky
News that 'this means we will be able to reproduce those who pay to
put their bodies into deep freeze storage -- it is only the
method of freezing that is critical.'
The Edinburgh scientists produced an exact copy of an adult sheep
by taking a cell from the udder of a sheep, extracting the genetic
information and placing it in an unfertilised egg from which the
original chromosomes had been removed.
Human cloning is illegal in Britain but not in several other
countries, and moves to introduce new legislation have now started
around the world as a result of fears raised by the research.
Members of the Roslin team say they have no intention of pioneering
human cloning and are instead working towards producing health care
products and studying genetic diseases.
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