|
 
     |
Kevin Eggan and Colleagues Produce Disease-Specific Stem Cells from Fertilized Eggs Cambridge, Mass. (June 7, 2007) – Kevin Eggan, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator with the Stowers Medical Institute, Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, and a Principal Faculty Member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, led a team of researchers in developing a novel technique to derive disease-specific stem cells from fertilized eggs. The paper, “Developmental reprogramming after chromosome transfer into mitotic mouse zygotes,” is featured as the cover story in today’s issue of Nature. "Kevin Eggan has shown that somatic cell nuclear transfer can be accomplished in mice using zygotes rather than eggs,” says William B. Neaves, Ph.D., President of the Stowers Medical Institute. “This raises the exciting prospect that donor-specific human embryonic stem cells could be made using excess frozen zygotes from fertility clinics rather than donated eggs." The work offers promise for overcoming a major logistical hurdle of early, or embryonic, stem cell research. It has long been believed that only an unfertilized egg could be used to successfully conduct somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Difficulty in obtaining unfertilized eggs for research has seriously impeded the pace of this work. By replacing the chromosomes of the single-cell fertilized egg with the chromosomes of a donor cell just before the egg is about to divide for the first time, Dr. Eggan and his colleagues have successfully conducted SCNT using a fertilized egg. This opens the door to the use of excess frozen zygotes from fertility clinics for SCNT. Many couples choose to donate excess fertilized eggs for medical research rather than storing them indefinitely or having them destroyed. Dieter Egli, a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Eggan Lab, is the first author on the paper. Jacqueline Rosains and Garrett Birkhoff, also from the Eggan Lab, also contributed to the paper. About the Stowers Medical Institute
|