Dolly's creator scorns human clone claims

By SIMON COLLINS science reporter

The scientist who created Dolly the sheep - the first cloned animal - says the world is still awaiting the arrival of the first cloned human.

Dr Ian Wilmut of Scotland's Roslin Institute, in Auckland for an international conference on embryo transfer, said scientists had not yet been able to clone monkeys, let alone humans.

The pioneering scientist is not convinced by the claims of the Raelian sect that a baby girl called Eve is the world's first human clone.

The Raelian company Clonaid has claimed that Eve, created from a skin cell taken from her mother, was born on December 26.

Dr Wilmut said yesterday: "I don't think we should take them so seriously as to say they are even doing this."

Cloning techniques had advanced to the point where scientists could grow healthy cells to replace damaged ones in patients with diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's.

"Now in 2003 we are at a time when human cells will be put into animals to discover whether they function well," he said.

But problems remained. While sheep and cows had been cloned, primates were elusive because there was something biologically different about their eggs.

And probably a majority of all cloned animals so far had at least minor abnormalities, with 20 to 30 per cent having "very serious" deformities. Dolly herself, born in 1996, has developed arthritis.

Dr Wilmut believed that although cloning techniques should be used to treat particular diseases, they should never be used to clone whole human beings, even if the risk of deformities could be reduced.

"I don't think it would be much fun to be a clone," he said. "You have to ask what it would be like to be genetically identical to one of your parents.

"Parents have to ask whether they think they would be able to treat a clone in the same way they treat a child produced normally."

For example, people already expected that a son of the English footballer David Beckham would be good at football.

"If the child was a clone and was genetically identical to David Beckham, the pressure would be even greater."

Couples struggling to have children should look to other new fertility techniques.

"At this meeting someone gave a paper about recovering potential sperm cells from animal testes and growing them in the lab. One day it might be possible to use a similar approach to produce children."

The conference also heard of breakthroughs in cloning:

* Professor Randall Prather of the University of Missouri said he had cloned a miniature pig that had been genetically modified to produce organs which would not be rejected if transplanted into people.

* Dr Melissa Carpenter of California's Geron Corporation outlined plans to grow cells taken from human embryos into new brain cells for people with Parkinson's.

But there was also disagreement about other controversial uses of cloning technology, such as cloning pet cats and dogs.

Charles R. Long of Genetic Savings and Clone, an American company that offers a "gene bank" for cells from pet animals, said: "The companion animal market represents a unique business model that requires addressing issues of animal welfare and market acceptance."

In New Zealand, AgResearch chief executive Keith Steele has refused requests to clone pets even though the institute has cloned sheep, cows and stud bulls.

Dr Wilmut believes the institute has got it right. The evidence so far was that even if cloned bulls had abnormalities, their offspring were "perfectly normal".

But that was not all that mattered for pets.

"What we want from the bull is semen. The way it behaves is not an issue."

The five-day annual conference of the International Embryo Transfer Society has drawn 529 scientists from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australasia. It is the first time it has been held in New Zealand.

Herald feature: Cloning