Scientists have taken some of the first steps towards therapeutic cloning, which means that it is possible that in the future your own cells could be used to treat disease and injury.

The possible benefits of this are tremendous: No longer would transplant patients have to take immune suppressing drugs for the rest of their lives. The shortage of organ donors would not longer be such a problem. Yet there are many more possibilities that have not yet been considered, but will be if this research proves successful.

What I find most interesting in all this, is that it might address some nature-nurture issues. If a disease were entirely due to genetics, then therapeutic cloning would have little benefit for those who suffer from that disease, but if there is an environmental component to the disease, then therapeutic cloning could in some cases be a life-saver. How so? Consider that weight has been linked to maternal nutrition during different stages of pregnancy. If a pregnant woman suffers from malnutrition at one point in the pregnancy, the child is more likely to be heavy. If the malnutrition occurs at a different stage of the pregnancy, the child may be skinny.

What if there is an environmental component to diseases such as diabetes or cancer? This means that doctors could grow a treatment from the patients own body that could be raised to be free of these disease.

Of course this is entirely theoretical, and the potential for abuse is quite high, but assuming that we keep crackpots from abusing the technology, there is much potential for good here. I’m very excited.

You can read more at either the BBC or at CNN or at New Scientist.