Licence to thrill: Sidhu to apply for a licence to uncover causes of diabetes type 1

Sydney diabetes researcher, Kuldip Sidhu, “couldn’t be happier” about the lifting of the ban on therapeutic cloning.

He hopes to be the first to apply for a license to produce a cloned human embryo in an attempt to understand how diabetes develops.

Typically the insulin-producing cells are destroyed in the bodies of people with diabetes. Therapeutic cloning would provide the first opportunity to study the diseases in their earliest stages, while the cells develop into insulin-producing cells.

“We want to find out why the cells self-destruct, and the mechanism that starts this cascade of events,” said Dr Sidhu.

“Once we understand it, we hope to develop a protective mechanism to save these cells.”

The process would involve taking the nucleus of a cell from a person with type 1 diabetes, placing it in an emptied egg and extracting the embryonic stem cells from the cloned embryo to study their development. Such processes mean “our scientists can compete at a truly global level,” said Joanna Knott, the convener of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research Australia.

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