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By granting a license last week to new-castle Centre for Life, which wants to clone embryos for stem-cell research, Britain signaled that it is serious about taking a leadership role in this fast-moving, potentially life-saving and controversial new field. Therapeutic cloning is banned in the United States and Germany, but other countries are vying aggressively to pick up the slack. Indeed, a lead researcher at the Newcastle Centre, Miodrag Stojkovic, had to leave his native Serbia to pursue a career in stem-cell research because laws are more restrictive there. Newcastle University professor Alison Murdoch, director of the government-sponsored fertility center, spoke by telephone to NEWSWEEK's Ginanne Brownell. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: How did you feel when you found out your team had been awarded the license?
MURDOCH: Relief. It was like the end of a long marathon race. We knew we would get permission eventually because the main issue was about it being ethically acceptable--and we had that debate in Britain a couple of years ago.
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How do you defend the ethics of stem-cell research and therapeutic cloning?
We are not creating any genetically unique material. We are not doing fertilization. We are taking a cell from an adult who understands and has given consent, and we are reprogramming that cell to forget what it was. I do not see any ethical problems because it is someone giving consent to do something with their cells not involving a third person.
What will this will mean for people who have diabetes, Alzheimer's and other diseases?
The long-term goal is that if you have a person who has diabetes we would get a tiny bit of skin from them, take cells from the skin and then reprogram an insulin-secreting cell. Then we would grow [more cells] and put them back into the patient. But first we have to make sure that we can safely do the nuclear transfer and grow the stem cells. We have to know that we can make stem-cell lines, and we have to know that when we put them back in the patient they are safe and not going to cause them any harm. So there are many steps to go through yet.
Why do you think Britain has gotten so far out in front on stem-cell research?
Because we were in there at the beginning with IVF [in vitro fertilization], and it was recognized very early on that there needed to be a legal framework. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Act was passed in 1990, and since then all work involving embryos and the legal definition of an embryo was extended to include this work that we were doing. If you do not have any legal framework it is too easy for people to throw their hands up in horror and say, "I don't want to do that." In the States that whole legal situation is a bit of a mess when it comes to things like this. Britain's legislation is permissive, not restrictive. It does not say you can do this and you cannot do that.
How is stem-cell research faring elsewhere?
[A South Korean team] thought they had succeeded at this technique once. There was some uncertainty about the proof, but I have no reason to doubt that they succeeded. But because they do not have the ethical and legal framework for it, there have been questions raised. There are huge differences in Europe between what can and cannot be done. A lot of it is the historical and religious background of the country. When you get into [Roman] Catholic countries, if IVF is prohibited, so then is any of this kind of work. In Central Europe you get into issues of the second world war and Nazism, and the memory and the fear are still there. People are very restricted because they do not want to be seen as selecting embryos; you can see the culture that they came from.
Why is it so controversial in America?
A lot of it comes from fear and misunderstanding. If we are successful in our work and if in 10 years' time we have therapy for something like Alzheimer's disease, are people in America who have Alzheimer's going to use it? And if they are, then why aren't they getting involved in developing the science and doing the research in the first place?
How will the issue play in the American election?
My gut feeling is that this is a debate that has to happen. The scientists want it, the clinicians want it, and industry in America realizes it is getting behind the times. It is perhaps opportune in an election year as a way of getting right to the top of the agenda very quickly.
Do you get hate mail?
I have had a host of messages today that, apart from one, has been totally supportive of what we have been doing. When we explain that an embryo is a cluster of little cells that is identical to the person that has given the skin cell, and that it is not and never was and never could be an individual, people then start to say, "Well, what is the problem then?"
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