Washington

As Oregon scientists announced Wednesday they had successfully converted human skin cells into embryonic stem cells, the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities warned that the technique is morally troubling on many levels.

Scientists at the Oregon Health & Science University and the Oregon National Primate Research Center announced they had successfully reprogrammed human skin cells to become embryonic stem cells, which are capable of transforming into other types of cells that could replace those damaged by illness or injury.

Many news reports on the announcement referred to the research as human cloning, but the university's release and a full report on the work in Cell magazine carefully avoided the term, except to say taking the work in the direction of reproductive cloning is unlikely.

The Oregon research team developed the unfertilized embryonic cells to seven days' growth in a lab. Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, who chairs the bishops' committee, said the process created and destroyed more than 120 human embryos, which the church considers human life that must be protected.

"Creating new human lives in the laboratory solely to destroy them is an abuse denounced even by many who do not share the Catholic Church's convictions on human life," O'Malley's statement said. He also decried the conditions to which the women who volunteered for the experiment were subjected to increase the number of eggs they produced, saying it "put their health and fertility at risk."

The researchers said their goal is to produce genetically matched stem cells for research and possible therapies, but O'Malley said the same goals can be achieved "by scientific advances that do not pose these grave moral wrongs."

Research using adult stem cells, or those derived after someone is born, as opposed to cells from embryos has provided promising possibilities for treating some illnesses or injuries. The reprogrammed stem cells can be used to replace damaged cells.

A statement from the university said the process announced Wednesday "is a variation of a commonly used method called somatic cell nuclear transfer. ... It involves transplanting the nucleus of one cell, containing an individual's DNA, into an egg cell that has had its genetic material removed. The unfertilized egg cell then develops and eventually produces stem cells."

Although the university's explanation of the breakthrough noted the research "does not involve the use of fertilized embryos, a topic that has been the source of a significant ethical debate," that doesn't address the Catholic church's moral objections.

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Researchers' embryonic stem-cell advance decried as morally troubling