Hyman OK's Cloning of Cells

In an attempt to find treatments for diseases like juvenile diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, University Provost Steven E. Hyman has approved plans for controversial research that would clone human cells to create embryonic stem cells.

The research—which was proposed by co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Douglas A. Melton and Harvard biologist Kevin C. Eggan—was quietly approved by Hyman in January.

The approval was not made public until yesterday, when it was reported by The Boston Globe.

Massachusetts Governor W. Mitt Romney publicly opposed this type of research this month on ethical grounds and called for legislation to make it illegal.

Melton and Eggan’s research would harvest eggs from volunteers and skin cells from people with diseases like juvenile diabetes.

The nuclei of the skin cells would then be inserted into the eggs to create human embryos carrying the genes for the disease and stem cells would be drawn from these embryos.

Researchers hope that by observing the development of stem cells that carry the genes for a specific disease, they will be able to discover new treatments.

This research would make Harvard the first American university to clone human cells for research purposes.

Similar research has been done outside of the United States by a few groups, according to Hyman.

Hyman said yesterday that he decided to approve the project with the help of a University committee created explicitly to examine “the ethical boundaries of stem cell research.”

“I studied their recommendation in the context of the body of ethical literature that has been written on the subject, talked to the University general counsel, got outside guidance, and then wrote an approval,” Hyman said.

The project still requires University approval to harvest cells from human subjects in order to ensure the safety of the human subjects.

Hyman—who said he does not like to use the term “cloning” in this case—responded to contentions that the recently-approved research will destroy human lives.

He said that this work is distinct from reproductive cloning, which attempts to create human beings from cloned embryos.

Melton and Eggan’s work would only allow embryos to grow for two weeks, and they would never be put into a human body to develop further.

Hyman said that even though there are deep moral questions involved in Melton and Eggan’s proposed research, he felt that it was important to move forward.

“We have an obligation to do this research in order to give children and adults with diseases the very best chance of life,” he said.

However, Romney and others have argued that the destruction of embryos at any stage is morally wrong, and Romney has called for a ban on research involving the cloning of human embryos.

A Boston Globe poll of 501 Massachusetts adults conducted at the beginning of the month found that 66 percent of those polled said they support stem cell research using human embryos. Twenty-three percent said they opposed the research and 11 percent said they were not sure.

However, 46 percent of those polled said they opposed research using cloned embryos, with only 42 percent supporting such research. This was a statistical tie, due to the 4.4 percent margin of error for the poll.

-—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.