Reuters News Agency, Globe and Mail

Friday, October 06, 2000

URL: http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/D/20001006/wpig?tf=RT/fullstory.html&cf=RT/config-neutral&slug=wpig&date=20001006&archive=RTGAM (date accessed: October 15, 2000)

Berlin — The European Patent Office said on Friday it had deemed as "contrary to morality" methods described by two firms in a cloning process in which they fused human and pig cells.

The fusion was described by Australia's Stem Cell Sciences and U.S.-based BioTransplant Inc. in a patent request to the Munich-based agency for a process aimed at trying to find alternatives for organ transplants.

"The Office voiced an opinion that certain claims in this application are contrary to morality," a spokesman said.

"As a consequence of this, the applicant did not pursue the application any further," he added, saying that the request would be considered to have lapsed within two weeks if no further action was taken by the applicant.

Environmental campaigner Greenpeace published extracts on Thursday of what it said was the application made to the EPO by BioTransplant and firm Stem Cell Sciences.

The alleged extracts made reference to an experiment fusing parts of human and pig cells in a technique known as "nuclear transfer" which has already been used in cloning pigs and in making Dolly the sheep, the first adult mammal ever cloned.

Greenpeace attacked the technology as "Frankenstein science" but BioTransplant and Stem Cell said it had misconstrued the significance and intention of the process.

They said that although one of the cells used in the experiment was a laboratory cell line of human origin, it was incapable of creating a human being. It added the creation of a hybrid pig-human organism was "experimentally impossible."

Nuclear transfer is seen offering benefits in the area of animal-to-human transplants by developing animals whose tissues and organs can be grafted into humans without risk of infection.