Article From MSNBC technology, by Charlene Laino FOR THE FIRST time, scientists said they have developed a highly reproducible method of cloning using adult cells to supply the genetic material. The report also offers the first confirmation of cloning using adult cells, the researchers said. The new method will accelerate the development of new drugs as well as cellular and molecular studies of aging, cancer, AIDS, diabetes and multiple sclerosis, the researchers said. While it took almost 300 tries to produce Dolly, two in every 100 attempts using the new technique resulted in cloned mice, said study head Ryuzo Yanagimachi of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. Not only is this very efficient, but mice are also one of the best mammalian models for studying human disease and drugs, he said. The reasons: They are cheap, their gestation period is short and their embryos are easier to manipulate than those of larger animals. Nevertheless, the researchers said they would test their technique on “barnyard” animals such as lambs, so that a head-to-head comparison of the benefits and flaws can be performed. The new technology has been licensed to Honolulu-based biotechnology company ProBio America, Inc., for commercialization and testing. The research appears in this week’s issue of the journal Nature. The news was welcomed by researchers here and abroad, including Dolly’s creator. “These are exciting results,” said Dr. Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland. “They suggest that it will be possible to produce adult clones from a range of different cell types and species.” “This is an extremely important piece of work” — all the more so because all previous attempts to clone mice had been so unsuccessful that scientists had almost given up, said Dr. Virginia Papaioannou of Columbia University in New York. “This proves Dolly was not a fluke,” added Robert Wall of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Md. “We also now have a useful model to study everything from aging to cancer.” POTENTIAL USES Among the various applications: Instant flocks of animals bred to produce special proteins that are needed to treat human diseases, such as clotting factors for hemophiliacs or alpha 1 anti-tryptosin for the treatment of emphysema and perhaps cystic fibrosis. The mass production of cows that are immune to infectious diseases — Immunocows, as one researcher called them. Mass production of animal, probably pig, organs for transplant into humans that would be genetically manipulated so that rejection by the human body would be overcome. The earliest procedures generated clones either by injection or fusion of embryonic or fetal cells. Then, Dolly the sheep was created by the fusion of adult cells. Making a clone from an adult cell is much more difficult than from a fetal cell. All cells — fetal or adult — have a complete set of genetic instructions. But adult cells are “differentiated.” Although each cell contains the complete DNA blueprint needed to create a whole animal, it has turned off many of the instructions, so that it differentially creates only other cells of its type — be they skin, eye or ear cells. In contrast, embryonic cells have not yet specialized into their adult fates and, therefore, are still using many of their genetic instructions. “You turn back the clock of an adult cell so that it behaves like a newly fertilized embryo, which would develop into a normal adult,” Yanagimachi said. INTRODUCING CUMULINA While both the mice and Dolly were created from adult cells, the methods used to create them differ in several respects, said co-author Anthony Perry, a postdoctoral researcher in Yanagimachi’s laboratory. To make Dolly, an adult cell was placed on the surface of a so-called anucleated egg — from which the nucleus and all its chromosomal instructions — were removed. “They’re put together — kissing, so to speak,” Perry said. The two are then jolted with an electric current, which causes them to fuse so that the content of one cell mixes with the other. Since only the adult cell had genetic material to begin with, the chimeric cells contain only that set of chromosomes. To create the mice, an injection pipette was used to remove the chromosomes from an adult somatic cell — that is, a cell that is not an egg or a sperm. Those chromosomes are then injected into the same sort of anucleated egg. The eggs was then chemically activated trick it into acting like a newly fertilized egg cell, and it started growing. This method allows the scientist the ability to remove any extra chromosomes that he doesn’t want — and just put in the genetic instructions he wants, Perry said. “It’s more controlled.” Also, it may allow, though this has yet to be tested, the co-injection of other materials into the eggs, such as substances that boost embryonic development. Cumulina, the first cloned mouse, was born Oct. 3. By repeating the procedure, the team created second and third generations of cloned mice that genetically match their ancestors. Earlier this month Japanese livestock researchers said they had used similar technology to clone twin heifers from an adult cow. But experts at the press conference here Wednesday agreed that the Japanese research needed to be shared with the scientific community — either at a medical confernce or in a scientific journal — before they could take it seriously.