Canada’s cloning conundrum

Therapeutic cloning of human embryos is among the most challenging and controversial of scientific activities in the world today — and one that can earn you up to 10 years in prison if you try it in Canada.

Michael Rudnicki

But according to the incoming scientific director of the Ottawa Health Research Institute’s Centre for Stem Cell and Gene Therapy Research, it may be time for Canada’s authorities to consider allowing these procedures. If not, warns Michael Rudnicki, Canadians will be unable to share the promising medical developments associated with this field.

His comments follow the announcement made early in February that Britain had granted a licence for such cloning to British researchers, who are studying a complex neuromuscular disease. Although this licence requires the embryos to be destroyed after two weeks, the results should yield unprecedented insights into the genetic mechanisms responsible for causing this disease in human beings.

“It’s a very important and interesting scientific problem, how the genome is reprogrammed in early embryos,” says Rudnicki, noting that mouse embryos are typically used for these kinds of experiments.

As we move closer to seeking therapeutic applications for our genetic knowledge, he adds, it becomes more critical to examine specific human examples.

“We’re learning a lot from the mouse,” Rudnicki explains, “but it’s very pressing to investigate the human context.”

In Canada, that context is covered by the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which restricts research involving human embryos. This federal legislation is not scheduled for review until three years after a Human Reproductive Agency is established to enforce the terms of the law. Meanwhile, Health Canada has yet to announce when that agency might be created.

At best, therefore, it would be 2008 before the rules in this country could change to allow Canadians to carry out the kind of investigations into human embryos that are already taking place in Britain and South Korea. As the progress of this research becomes clear, Rudnicki maintains, other countries will undoubtedly change their rules to allow their respective scientific communities to follow suit.

“It’s that knowledge that we’ll be losing out on,” he concludes. “Canada has historically been a leader in the stem cell arena, and this is an example of an area that we will not be able to participate in.”