Dr. Don Wolf, PhD
Oregon Health Sciences University, Oregon Regional Primate Research Center

Wednesday, April 10, 2002
11:30am - 1:00pm
Mondale Hall, Room 25
University of Minnesota Law School

Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) now can be used to cryopreserve embryos, treat male infertility by intracytoplasmic sperm injection, address maternal age-related infertility by oocyte donation, and detect genetic disease prior to embryo transfer by preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Will the next step in sexual reproduction be cytoplasmic or nuclear transfer in oocytes, the in vitro maturation of immature oocytes, or the preservation of ovarian tissue? More controversially, will asexual reproduction by somatic cell nuclear transfer or cloning become a possibility? Success in embryonic cell cloning began in agricultural species in the 1980s, leading to the first somatic cell cloning success, Dolly the lamb, in 1997. Yet we still face problems in animal cloning. Researchers are nonetheless interested in cloning nonhuman mammals. Dr. Wolf will describe current efforts to produce genetically identical rhesus monkeys by embryo manipulation or nuclear transfer. Finally, he will address the current race to clone humans. He will argue that it is premature to consider reproductive cloning in humans and legal restrictions should be in place. He will, however, defend therapeutic cloning to create embryos for stem cell harvest.

Commentators:

Prof. Susan M. Wolf Law School, Medical School, Center for Bioethics, University of Minnesota		Prof. Christopher De Jonge Reproductive Medicine Center, University of Minnesota