UnitCloningTextAACloneisBorn.pptVIP

Unit 8 Cloning Text A A Clone is Born First Stem Cells Extracted from Cloned Human EmbryoPosted: 02.17.04 Scientists in South Korea have extracted stem cells from a cloned human embryo - a breakthrough that has potential for treating various diseases but also ignites fears that rogue scientists will use the technology to clone humans. Part I: Pre-Reading Task Other scientists have cloned small numbers of human embryos that lived for a short time, but the South Koreans who announced their work last week in the journal Science, apparently succeeded on a scale that far outstripped超过，胜过 earlier human cloning efforts. South Korean researchers make medical history The researchers began with a group of 16 women who were given hormone treatments to produce large numbers of reproductive egg cells. They eventually obtained 242 eggs from the women. Then the scientists used innovative techniques to strip out the nucleus from each of these egg cells. The nucleus is the portion of the cell containing many of the cell‘s genetic instructions. 指令 The scientists next took body cells from the same women who had donated the egg cells. The body cells have two sets of chromosomes,染色体 the full genetic blueprint needed to create a human being. The scientists removed these body cells nuclear material and placed it into the egg cells. The result was 66 cloned eggs, in effect, human embryos, with the exact genetic makeup of the original females. The researchers grew 30 of the embryos for a week to the so-called blastocyst（生）胚泡 stage, when stem cells could be extracted Stem cell technology could help cure diseases Embryonic stem cells are unique because they have the potential to develop into any type of tissue or cell in the body. The research, called therapeutic治疗的，有益健康的 cloning, could allow scientists to take a plug of skin or blood sample from a patient and use it to grow tissue, organs or batches of cells. The new cells would