Home  

Creation movie

In the beginning was the cell and the cells multiplied by cloning Creating identical copies (watch creation movie image 1); For billions of years this was the way life reproduced; Clones ruled the world; Mindless and immortal; Then, under water, sex evolved. Sperm met egg. The mingling of genes sparked an explosion of life. Millions of new species. And this potent mix of sex and chance ultimately led to us. It's taken millions of years for blind chance to turn us from primitive humans into modern man. But now we are taking charge. Biologists are learning how to clone, and they are mixing genes to create new species. But above all, they are becoming masters of the molecules they study. We are at a turning point in history, and the potential impact of this work excites leaders in the field like Princeton's Lee Silver (watch creation movie image 2). Now, as we enter the 21st Century, it is perfectly clear that we are going to understand what it means to be human at the smallest level. We're going to be able to pick apart human cells and not only are we going to be able to understand it, we're going to be able to manipulate human beings, we're going to be able to change our genes, change our cells, change human beings in every kind of way that you can imagine. For years Jose Cibelli and his company have been cloning animals. In 1998 they cloned the first cow. They also cloned a rare ox called a Gower (watch creation movie image 4). Sara Waddington got pregnant the conventional way. But even so, nature had a surprise for her. Sara is having identical triplets (watch creation movie image 3). Nature's clones. I picked Carl up from work and he said, did you do anything interesting at work today. And I said, no, not really. I found out I was pregnant, but that's about it. And he just went, you are joking? I said, no. Sara got pregnant at almost the first attempt. Millions of Carl's sperm traveled to Sara's waiting egg. Just one burrowed in. At that moment, a unique embryo was created. But then something very strange happened. For reasons no one understands, Sara's embryo cloned itself. It split into two, then into three to form identical triplets. We'd always wanted a family. Sara wants a bigger family than I do. I'm sort of in the middle. But you know, we wanted a few kids running about. It's going to be quite good. We just didn't expect them all to come at once. Six months into her pregnancy Sara has a scan. It's a chance to see how the triplets are developing. For the first time they're able to see a three-dimensional image of the triplets. Now the face is coming through. I can see that now. The little nose, the lips, and you see the eye there. There's a little bit of cord just over this eye here. Professor Campbell has confirmed that Sara and Carl's triplets are boys. Sara will give birth to identical triplets within two months. Nature is practiced at making human clones, so the odds are high of a successful outcome. Regrowing Judson's spinal cord, even partially, could transform his life. The spinal cord's very complicated. However, if I could even get a little more function it would make it easier for me. I try to keep a stiff upper-lip as they say, but there are a lot of things that are very frustrating. Getting around, getting in and out of my car, getting in and out of bed, getting in the shower, getting onto the toilet, you know. Once I get to bed it's just like I made it, I made it one more day. This vision of the future depends on creating cloned human embryos, something no one has ever done before. Jose Cibelli, however, is going to try. The BBC have been given exclusive access to follow the whole procedure. So what I'm going to do today, I'm going to take one of these cells, just one, and inject it into an egg (watch creation movie image 5). Judson's skill cell, like almost every other cell in his body, contains all the genetic information needed to build another Judson. No skin cell is visible to the naked eye. But enlarged 60,000 times the breathtaking interior world of the cell bursts into view. At the heart of the cell lies the nucleus. Protected inside the nucleus are chromosomes. Chromosomes are nothing more than tightly bound packages of DNA. When they're unraveled, the characteristic double-strands of DNA are revealed. Each strand of DNA carried hundreds of genes. And it's these genes that build everything, from the shape of your nose to the color of your skin. Jose Cibelli will insert the nucleus containing Judson's DNA into a human egg. Doing this should turn the adult skin cell back into its early embryonic form. But how it does this is a mystery. We know the magic is in the egg. Now, how it works, we don't know, and we keep saying that the person that can find that out should be given the Nobel Prize. First, Jose Cibelli has to remove the glowing nucleus out of the tiny egg. This nucleus contains the genetic material of the woman who donated this egg. It cannot be mixed with Judson's DNA or a hybrid would result. Now, Jose Cibelli is ready to collect one of Judson's skin cells. I'm trying to load the cell inside the pipette. Okay, the cell is inside the pipette. I'm going to go and I'm going to go and grab an egg and inject the cell in. Finally, Jose Cibelli is ready to begin. So I'm ready to inject one of these cells into the egg for the first time. So anything could happen. Jose Cibelli is about to cross an entirely new frontier. So I just went through the zone, and now I'm gonna go try to pierce the membrane, I'll be very gentle. Stroke should be enough, I guess.


  BBC How To Build A Human Creation movie - In the beginning was the cell and the cells multiplied by cloning
 
For the first time in history we are seeing instead of a sperm, a cell containing the complete genetic make up of a human go into a human egg. And now I'm going to go backward very slowly. The first egg now has Judson's skin cell inside it. Jose Cibelli then injects the remaining eggs with skin cells. He will use chemicals to shock each egg into behaving as if it had been fertilized. If it works they will divide. The egg's still waits for a sperm. If we don't do anything they are just going to sit there. So we are going to let it sit there for about two hours, and then we're going to trigger development artificially, without sperm. If these eggs divide we will be a step closer to the age of truly personalized medicine. And stem cells will have wider usage than just building body parts. They could also provide treatments for diseases like diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Ultimately, perhaps, they could be used to replace older cells. Delaying the ageing process. But these dreams lie in the future. For now, Jose Cibelli has to wait. It will be two days before he knows if the eggs have divided. Jose Cibelli is trying to grow an embryo for stem cells. Even advocates of such research are aware that many people will find this unacceptable. These advances in modern medicine and biology are really getting to the core of what life is, and that makes many people very uncomfortable. All you have at the beginning for the first two weeks is a mass of cells, and when you want to make embryonic stem cells what you're doing is taking cells from this initial embryo, which is just a mass of cells. So it is alive in the sense that, yes, it's a human life, but it's not alive in the sense of being conscious. And I think there's quite a difference between conscious life and cellular life. At the moment, human embryos are the best source of stem cells. Until new sources of stem cells are found the debate about their use will continue. Jose Cibelli is about to discover if the eggs have divided or cleaved. If the eggs have divided while in this incubator, Jose will have produced the first few cells of Judson Somerville's clone. For one of the main fears about this technology is that it will not stop at cloning stem cells. Going from cloning a few cells to cloning a child would be a huge leap. But there will be demand, in some cases, hard to resist. There are certain human situations where one has lots of sympathy for the people involved. In the future, stem cells might help children. But what really stirs his father's imagination is the prospect of cloning him. It might seem that cloning a child would be like bringing him or her back to life. But geneticist John Burn (Prof, Clinical Geneticist, Newcastle University) thinks such notions are fundamentally flawed. People often think about cloned humans as sort of huge photocopies. But of course, they're nothing like that. lf you take an adult cell from an adult person and create a new embryo, then you would be producing the same genetic make up, but in a different womb, in a different generation, so they would be nothing like as similar as, for example, identical twins that have formed naturally. A clone might look the same, but could never really be the same because of the influence of the environment. We know from looking at identical twins that they're not actually identical.
The outside world will have an influence on how a person develops, quite apart from their genes. And it's not just what happens after you're born; it's also what happens to you in the womb that will have an enormous impact. In other words, we are a combination of our nature and our nurture. As early as 24 weeks a fetus can hear and respond to the world around him. Its growing brain is literally shaped by what it hears. There has been sort of some evidence to suggest that classical music particularly to stimulate the brain and not particularly in a musical sense, but just can contribute towards intelligence in general. So obviously we want clever babies, so anything like that that would it's worth trying. Sara and Carl know that their triplets will be physically identical, but want to encourage their personalities to differ. The first thing we said we'd do, we wouldn't dress them identically. I think it would be quite important for people to be able to see them as three individual boys, that they look different for a start, as to if they're all dressed differently, I think that would help. Sara and Carl made lots of preparations for the birth of the triplets. But nothing could really prepare them for the shock of the babies' sudden arrival - seven weeks early. The triplets were born on August 17th, 2001 they all came out really quickly, and they were all crying as soon as they came out, which was nice. Now they've gone off to Special Care. Three new humans have been successfully conceived, survived the perils of an early birth and are in perfect condition. These three identical boys started out as a single embryo. They will have different experiences and different memories. But they will always be influenced by the fact that they are nature's clones. At "Advanced Cell Technology", Jose's attempts of cloning have been more frustrating. By early October he had injected over forty human eggs with DNA, none had divided. So, when on October 12th Jose Cibelli looked at his latest batch of eggs, he expected to be disappointed yet again. Jose Cibelli had done something no one had ever done before, created a cloned human embryo. His success made world headlines. Despite the media attention, as Jose Cibelli drives home, he knows he is only at the beginning of his scientific journey. He has so far grown an embryo to the six cell stage. To recover stem cells, which are his goal, he needs to grow an embryo of at least fifty cells. So when we get to that point, that's going to be a big deal. There are still a lot of challenges; a lot of risk, there's a long way to go. It's like the first flight of the Wright brothers. How fast and how far this science will really fly is completely unpredictable. Opponents will try to have it outlawed. But it is unlikely that such research can now be stopped. Creation movie description: clones ruled the world, this process called Therapeutic Cloning could transform the lives of many people. Biologists are learning how to clone.
 
The cells multiplied by cloning
The cells multiplied by cloning
  Prof. Lee Silver, molecular biologist, Princenton University
Prof. Lee Silver, molecular biologist, Princenton University
  Embryo split into three to form identical triplets
Embryo split into three to form identical triplets
  They also cloned a rare ox called a Gower
They also cloned a rare ox called a Gower
  I'm going to take one of these cells and inject it into an egg
I'm going to take one of these cells and inject it into an egg

Creation movie quotes with snapshot frame picture

clone a human embryo   Paul Nurse, winner of a Nobel Prize for his work on cell division, is well aware that the growing ability to manipulate DNA... in modern biology is going on inside this building (Advanced Cell Technology, Worcester, Massachusetts). In here, they're about to attempt something that has never been done before... Doctor Jose Cibelli (Vice President of Research, ACT) is working late, because he will start an extraordinary experiment...
Read the full quotes from Creation movie
 
Stem cells offer the_hope   this process called Therapeutic Cloning could transform the lives of many people. A recent survey is saying that about 120 million people can potentially benefit from this therapy, so this is a revolution in medicine. And such a revolution could impact on all our lives. Using cloned stem cells doctors will grow spare parts that are exact doubles of the originals. Doctor Tony Atala (Director of Tissue Emgineering Chilrens Hospital, Boston) is fascinated by the potential of stem cells.
Read the full quotes from Creation movie