A Chinese team of scientists has succeeded in cloning five human blastulas for research purposes, the Shandong Stem Cell Engineering Research Center disclosed Wednesday, dpa reported.
At a press conference held jointly with a hospital in Yantai, the experiment created five blastual clones from 135 eggs. A blastula is an embryo in the early stage of development.
Of the five blastulas, four were from skin fibrocytes of healthy donors while the fifth was from lymphocytes of patients with Parkinson disease, the researchers said in a press release.
Research team leader Li Jianyuan said the new cloning technolyg was expected to aid in the medical treatment of patients suffering, among others, from Parkinsons disease.
A top scientist in animal cloning, Chen Dayuan, praised the experiment, saying the generation of human blastulas would hopefully heal patients by replacing cells and organs under pathological change with ones their bodies had developed by healthy means.
The web edition of science journal "Cloning and Stem Cells" reported the Chinese scientific achievement on January 27, 2009.