Yahoo! News - Cloning Experiment Shows Cancer Reversible - Report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A cloning experiment may show that the body itself has the ability to reverse cancer, U.S.-based researchers said on Saturday.

They cloned mouse embryos from a melanoma skin cancer cell, and created healthy adult mice using some of the cloned cancer cells, showing that malignancy is not the inevitable fate of a cancer cell.

"This settles a principal biological question," said Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the country's leading experts in cloning.

He said while the genetic elements of cancer cannot be reversed, the epigenetics -- how the genes are actually turned on and off -- can be.

Many researchers want to try similar experiments with human cancer cells, but the administration of President Bush forbids the use of federal funds for such study because it would involve the creation of what is technically a human embryo.

Opportunity slips away.