Ian Wilmut

..Refinements of this procedure will make it possible to produce pluripotent human cell lines without use of an embryo. There are profound scientific and social implications of this research...

..In this Introduction, we provide an overall context in which to consider these individual papers...

..The long history of researching and treating infectious diseases shows that it may take many decades to reap the full benefit of the new biological understanding...

..Research is in progress with cells from patients with amyotropic lateral sclerosis...

..Our findings suggest that H4K20me3 and HP1? are markers for cell type commitment that can be triggered by developmental or cell context, independently of the differentiation process...

..RNAi-mediated knockdown of this novel transcript resulted in embryonic developmental arrest at the late morula stage, suggesting an essential role for this isoform in sheep blastocyst formation...

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..This data suggests that MT and SP are effective replacements for MEF-CM in hESC culture, contributing to the standardization of hESC in vitro models and ultimately their application...

..Human reproductive cloning is unethical, but the production of cells from cloned embryos could offer many potential benefits. So, can human cloning be made safe?..

..Our results demonstrate the viability of an alternative strategy to generate normal hESC lines from clinically failed eggs, thereby further minimizing the potential to conflict with donor reproductive interest to conceive...

..This review examines the known predisposing factors and biochemical mechanisms involved in spontaneous activation. The strategies used to prevent spontaneous metaphase-II release in rat eggs will also be discussed...

..This now permits an appreciation of the future therapeutic utility of this type of cell...

..The rederived lines had the same proliferative capacity and rate of telomere shortening as the donor cell lines, suggesting that these are innate, genetically determined, properties that are conserved by nuclear transfer...

..This provides a methodology for studying the de-differentiation of somatic cells that can potentially lead to an efficient way of reprogramming somatic cells to a pluripotent state without genetically altering them...

..In this report, we demonstrate that live lambs can be produced from zona-free IVF embryos. We are pursuing this method as a prerequisite to developing viral vector co-culture delivery strategies...

..Because controlled hypothesis testing of clone fidelity or clone health may not be possible, meticulous documentation of such observational evidence is a valuable contribution to the field...

..This represents another sequential step in the generation of therapeutic grade stem cells with reduced risk of zoonotic pathogen transmission...

..M16 medium is superior for culture of nuclear transfer embryos and low oxygen concentration with CZB medium during culture shows no benefit on development of cloned embryos...

..Improvements in the efficiency may depend upon understanding those mechanisms in the early embryo that establish the precise chromatin structure that governs development...

..No fetuses survived beyond 40 days of development, however, showing that although these cells could be substantially reprogrammed, they were not fully competent for nuclear transfer...

..These results also demonstrate that the inbred ES cell line, HM-1, can be used to produce viable cloned mice, although less efficiently than most heterozygous ES cell lines...

..3% of transferred embryos developed to term. These results indicate that GV material is essential for nucleus remodeling after nuclear transfer...

..However, no improvement in blastocyst development was observed. Using fetal fibroblasts as nuclear donor cells, a live cloned piglet was produced in a pregnancy that was maintained by cotransfer of parthenogenetic embryos...

..In addition, the study has confirmed that the changes in cloned lamb nephropathy are established by day 85 of development...

..Our results suggest that the murine demethylation process is facilitated either by a sperm-derived factor or by male pronuclear chromatin composition...

..Thus, both remodeling of DNA and epigenetic reprogramming appear critical for development of both fertilized and nuclear transfer embryos...

..Parthenote fetuses collected 21 and 30 days post estrus were morphologically normal but significantly smaller and lighter than fertilized controls (p < 0.01). IVM pig parthenotes stopped development around 31 days post estrus...

..Finally, we will summarize the emerging principles which appear to govern nuclear reprogramming and production of clones, and will consider the application of nuclear transfer to the rat...

..Although the underlying mechanisms remain to be determined, our data indicate that somatic cell nuclear transfer procedures can lead to epigenetic deregulation at imprinted loci...

..This has potential application in the production of organs for transplantation to humans, studies of human genetic disease and basic research in to the control of gene expression and function...

..0 kV/cm DC. Approximately 84% of parthenogenetic blastocysts yielded by this protocol were diploid, implying a potential for further in vivo development...