'Trounson, we have a problem':
Obtaining eggs for research may be a limiting factor

“We’re thrilled,” exclaims Professor Alan Trounson, international director of the Australian Stem Cell Centre, about the overturn of the ban on therapeutic cloning.

“I think it’s fantastic news. It’s raised the morale of the scientists.”

Trounson’s team wants to use somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) to explore options for disease diagnosis and treatment.

SCNT involves the creation of an embryo by inserting a nucleus from a patient’s body cell into an egg cell that has had its nucleus removed. The new laws allow such an embryo to grow for up to 14 days and provide scientists with stem cells for research.

More specifically, Trounson’s team plans to produce stem cells from patients with complex diseases such as motor neurone disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and diabetes. Stem cells from these people could be used to study the development of the faulty nerves that cause the disease. This in turn could reveal genes and proteins that could be targets for drugs, says Trounson.

But the first step, and the “critical component” according to Trounson, is obtaining a supply of human eggs.

“We’re looking forward to seeing whether we can obtain eggs for these studies,” Trounson says. Neuroscientist, Professor Peter Schofield, agrees that finding eggs will be a key issue and “may be a limiting factor.” The new laws ensure that eggs cannot be sold and donation is voluntary, to protect the donors.

“If there aren’t enough eggs, tough,” says Schofield.

Once eggs are obtained and used for SCNT, the possibility of a revelation of genes and proteins as targets for drugs would be ground breaking findings.

“Those kinds of things are currently unknown because we can’t study the disease very early on. We can only study the disease when it starts to become apparent in the patient,” says Trounson.

But for the moment, negotiations with IVF clinics are the focus; before anything can eventuate, human eggs are needed.

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