More calls to lift therapeutic cloning ban

Professor Ian Wilmut, who headed the team that created Dolly the sheep, has urged the UK government to lift its ban on research into therapeutic cloning . Speaking at the Edinburgh International Science Festival last week, Professor Wilmut said he had made a submission to the Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, arguing that the creation of cloned early embryos for research into disease therapies should be permitted.

Professor Wilmut warned of a 'brain drain' if the government did not back therapeutic cloning. 'We were the people who had the lucky breakthrough. It would be a great shame if we missed the opportunity to go on to develop therapies', he said. While he conceded that there would always be some people who found the idea of using cloned embryos to grow a patient's own cells and tissues for treatments 'profoundly offensive', he pointed out that the potential medical benefits of therapeutic cloning were vast.

Of his research at the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh, Professor Wilmut said one of his main aims was to find ways of turning adult cells back into embryonic cells. For example, skin cells might be encouraged to change themselves into bone marrow cells, to treat leukaemia. But the early embryo work is still essential to understand the complex chemical signals that control cell development, say scientists.