NEW DELHI, April 26: A revolutionary biotechnology research in organ culture is underway to enable scientists manufacture specific body parts through cloning.``The future of cloning is not of the entire body, but for the generation of specific body parts,'' says D Balasubramanian, Director of Research, Hyderabad Eye Research Foundation of the L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad.Delivering the 35th founder memorial lecture on ``Cloning, an update'' under the aegis of the Shriram Institute for Industrial Research here on Monday, he said a scientist in Denver, Colorado had already succeeded in growing embryonic stem (ES) cells of mice into an embryonic heart-like mass in the incubator recently.Balasubramanian, is well known for popularising science in the country for which he has received several national and international awards. ``When we turn to cloning homo sapiens, the debate turns hot for no purpose. In reality, we can only clone the body, the physiology, not what goes into the brain. Thus all the controversy and apprehensions regarding cloning humans is pointless,'' he says.Balasubramanian says what is more meaningful and useful is not whole body cloning but organ cloning. Under this, one could ``build'' a specific organ, the liver, heart or kidney, from the scratch or a single fertilised cell or the human embryo in its very early stages. Top
