William Hurlbut MD, a Stanford University professor of human biology and member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, is a noted critic of current research on human embryos. Such research inevitably leads to embryo destruction, which he notes many Americans oppose, “believing that there is an implicit dignity and inviolability in the individual continuity of a human life from fertilization to natural death.” At the same time Hurlbut notes that embryonic stem cells themselves, due to their pluripotency, may have utility in treatment of chronic disease. The logical questions to ask in the face of this impasse are, “Are there morally uncontroversial ways to obtain embryonic stem cells? Or to put it differently, are there non-embryonic sources of embryonic stem cells?”At the December 2004 meeting of the President’s Council, Dr. Hurlbut proposed that a procedure known as altered nuclear transfer (ANT), in effect “cellular cloning with a twist”, could provide a potential solution to this moral dilemma. An alteration could be made via ANT in a donor somatic cell nucleus (or egg cytoplasm) so that the subsequent clonote produced would never be able to undergo normal embryonic development. Such a biological entity could produce a blastocyst providing pluripotent stem cells but would never form an embryo he reported. The concept of ANT was illustrated by one possible example at the council meeting utilizing cdx2 gene studies in mice. Such studies have not been conducted in humans to date and other genes (or combinations of genes) are possible targets.To illustrate the process of ANT, using the mouse as a model, a somatic cell’s cdx2 gene (necessary for the formation of trophoectoderm) is inactivated. Trophoectoderm tissue is the forerunner of the placenta and is also necessary for normal embryonic development. The mouse cell’s intentionally altered nucleus is then transferred to an enucleated egg and “coaxed” to begin cellular division. This cloned entity develops similarly to a traditionally cloned embryo until around the 16-32 cell stage when, due to the failure of trophoectoderm development, it becomes a disorganized mass of potential stem cells that will soon die. Researchers have successfully harvested functional pluripotent embryonic stem cells from these altered mice clonotes to create viable embryonic stem cell lines.Hurlbut makes the case that if this technique could be used with human cells it would be theoretically possible to obtain human embryonic stem cells from non-embryos. In his council proposal he refers to these bioengineered entities as “biological ‘artifacts’…entit[ies] [that] would never rise to the level of a living being.” He argues that the cloned product “by design and from its very beginning, lacks the attributes and capacities of a human embryo” and thus “is no being with human moral status.” He calls for further animal experimentation to help confirm his analysis.This paper looks at the claims of Dr. Hurlburt from a scientific and ethical perspective. It examines available comments and criticisms of the proposal from both the stem cell research community as well as those opposed to embryo-destructive techniques in humans. Finally the paper looks at an alternate interpretation of Dr. Hurlbut’s biological facts. Does the process of ANT create biological entities that are simply “embryo-like” and devoid of moral import or rather would it create human embryos with partially defective genomes resulting in the untimely deaths of early human beings?