Karl Illmensee

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Karl Oskar Illmensee (* 1939 in Lindau ) is an Austrian biologist .

Life

Illmensee studied chemistry and biology in Munich and received his doctorate there in 1970. From 1971 to 78 he worked at the University of Bloomington , Indiana, and at the Foxchase Cancer Center Philadelphia , Pennsylvania. He later held professorships in Geneva , Salzburg , Graz and Innsbruck .

After working on fruit flies (in the 1960s), Karl Illmensee and Peter Hoppe published an article in the journal Cell in 1981 that reported on a successful cloning experiment in three mice. These cell nuclear transfers based on fertilized egg cells were the first successful cloning in mammals; they therefore received a lot of attention in the lay press and could not be repeated successfully by other working groups at first. In 1984, an article appeared in Science in which the cloning of mammals by nucleus transfer was described as impossible.

It was not until 2006 that researchers from Warsaw and 2007 from Boston showed that mice can actually be cloned with fertilized egg cells, but with a different technique than that described by Illmensee in 1981; in the case of the cloned sheep Dolly and in other animal experiments, cloning had previously been successful with unfertilized egg cells.

In 1982, Illmensee's own employees accused Illmensee of having "embellished" other, as yet unpublished research results. A commission of inquiry from the University of Geneva set up as a result finally reprimanded the inadequate documentation of the as yet unpublished laboratory work and therefore assessed these experiments as "scientifically worthless". However, no forgery could be proven. The commission proposed that the experiments criticized be repeated in international cooperation. The results of these successful repetitions have been reviewed and published internationally.

In 1982 Illmensee received the Swiss Marcel Benoist Prize and the German Otto Mangoldt Prize. From 1983 to 1988 Illmensee continued to work as a full professor at the University of Geneva. In 1988 Illmensee followed a call to the University of Salzburg (natural science faculty). In 1990 he followed another call to the University of Graz . Illmensee worked at both universities until the end of 1995. In January 1996 he followed the call to the University of Innsbruck (University Clinic for Gynecology at the University of Innsbruck), where he worked until his retirement in 2005.

At the beginning of 2001 Illmensee appeared as a scientific advisor to the controversial clone researcher Severino Antinori , but separated from him again in 2002 and instead worked with the biologist and reproductive physiologist Panayiotos Zavos. Zavos operates in Lexington (Kentucky) , the company REPROGEN , claiming his company had first produced a cloned human embryo for the purpose of reproductive medicine worldwide. Illmensee worked there as "scientific director". In October 2007, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported details of this cooperation: On March 14, 2003, Illmensee transferred the genetic material from body cells of an American woman into ten egg cells for the first time. 64 hours later, an eight-cell embryo developed from one of the egg cells. Such clone embryos were planted in a total of five genetic donors in 2004 and 2005 in the uterus. However, this did not result in a successful pregnancy.

On May 8, 2007, Illmensee ended the collaboration with Reprogen and was called in as a scientific advisor for the “Genesis” reproductive clinic in Patras . He also began working with US embryologist Mike Levanduski. In his New York laboratory, he researched embryo splitting, which is forbidden in Germany but permitted in numerous countries: In-vitro fertilization would double the chance of pregnancy if a growing embryo is divided. The procedure creates a natural twin, as it were, as an ethics committee in the USA has determined. In the Journal of Reproductive Medicine and Endocrinology in the spring of 2007 he described his cloning experiments with human cells, which are banned in Germany but allowed in numerous countries, and whose optimistic account was commented on by the Süddeutsche Zeitung with the words, “He would like to be the first holding a human clone in front of the camera ”.

Honors

In May 2016 Illmensee received the “Embryologist of the Month” award from the American College of Embryology for his pioneering research in the field of embryology.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Illmensee, Peter C. Hoppe: Nuclear transplantation in mus musculus: Developmental potential of nuclei from preimplantation embryos. In: Cell . Volume 23, 1981, pp. 9-18, doi: 10.1016 / 0092-8674 (81) 90265-8
  2. ^ J. McGrath, Davor Solter : Inability of mouse blastomere nuclei transferred to enucleated zygotes to support development in vitro. In: Science . Volume 226, 1984, pp. 1317-1319, doi: 10.1126 / science.6542249
  3. ↑ Monya Baker: Fertilized eggs reprogram adult-cell genomes. In: Nature Reports Stem Cells. Online publication of June 7, 2007, doi: 10.1038 / stemcells.2007.4
  4. ↑ K. Illmensee, B. Gerhaeuser, B. Lioi, JA Modlinski: Developmental potential of nuclei from mouse teratocarcinoma cells. In: Natural Sciences. 76, 1989, pp. 582-584.
  5. ↑ JA Modlinski, D. Gerhaeuser, B. Lioi et al .: Nuclear transfer from teratocarcinoma cells into mouse oocytes and eggs. In: Development. Volume 108, No. 2, 1990, pp. 337-348.
  6. ↑ Italian doctor confirms clone pregnancies. ( Memento from February 22, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ "Recently, our team of scientific and medical experts has created the first human cloned embryo for reproductive purposes. The embryo was the end result of using nine microsurgically enucleated human donor oocytes and fusing them via electrical stimulation and activation with whole human granulosa cells from a patient desiring to have a child via SCNT. "On: zavos.org ( Memento from November 29th 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Sascha Karberg : The mysterious Dr. Illmensee. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung . October 21, 2007, p. 75.
  9. ↑ PM Zavos, K. Illmensee: Possible Therapy of Male Infertility by Reproductive Cloning: One Cloned Human 4-Cell Embryo. In: Archives of Andrology. Volume 52, 2006, pp. 243-254. PMID 16728339
  10. ↑ PM Peter Moosleitner's magazine. November 2007, pp. 34-42.
  11. ↑ K. Illmensee, M. Levanduski: Embryo splitting. In: The MEFS Journal. 15, 2010, pp. 57-63.
  12. ^ The Ethics Committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine: Embryo splitting for infertility treatment. In: Fertil Steril. 82, 2004, pp. 256-257.
  13. ^ Karl Illmensee: Mammalian Cloning and its Discussion on Applications in Medicine. In: Journal of Reproductive Medicine and Endocrinology - Journal of Reproductive Medicine and Endocrinology. Volume 4, No. 1, 2007, pp. 6-16 kup.at
  14. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung . June 19, 2007, p. 18.
  15. ↑ Dr. Karl Illmensee is an Embryologist of the month of May, 2016. American College of Embryology, May 2016
personal data
SURNAME Illmensee, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Illmensee, Karl Oskar (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian biologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Lindau