Researchers at Stemagen claim that they used skin cells from two men to create human embryos. The embryos did not develop past around 100 cells, the blastocyst stage, but that wasn't the point, said Stemagen CEO Samuel H. Wood. The aim, he said, is to derive stem cell lines from cloned embryos. From the new York Times:
It is not clear whether the embryos would have been viable if implanted into a womb. Stemagen did not test whether the embryos had the correct number of chromosomes. But Dr. Wood, who also is a fertility doctor, said, “We’ve seen reproductive blastocysts that look like this or worse and they implant.”
He said Stemagen, which he started with a wealthy friend in 2005, was not interested in creating cloned babies, something that is illegal in places and morally repugnant to many people. Rather it wants to make stem cell lines for research and medical treatments.
