Kjarnaviðbót

Kjarnaviðbót, literally “nuclear replacement” in Icelandic, denotes methods that alter the nucleus of a cell to reset its developmental potential or to create an embryo for research or therapy. In practice, it covers techniques that either transfer a nucleus from one cell into another cell’s enucleated cytoplasm or reprogram the nucleus to a pluripotent state.

The principal approaches are somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), where a nucleus from a donor somatic cell is placed into an enucleated oocyte, and nuclear reprogramming, including induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which reprograms a somatic nucleus into a pluripotent state without embryo formation.

Applications include disease modeling, drug screening and regenerative medicine, with the prospect of patient-specific cell therapies, while SCNT can also be used to generate embryo-derived stem cell lines for research.

Ethical and regulatory considerations are central, as reproductive cloning raises significant concerns; many jurisdictions regulate or prohibit such practices, while oversight also governs embryo research and the use of stem cells.

Current status: kjarnaviðbót remains mainly a research-oriented field; iPSC technology is widely adopted in labs; SCNT has produced stem cell lines in animals and limited human research; no routine clinical application exists.