(387)  HUMAN CLONING AT THE ROSLIN INSTITUTE?

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On 28 September 2004 Professor Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, where Dolly the sheep was cloned (see Nos 14, 42, 207) announced an application to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to use cloned human embryos to study motor neurone disease (MND).  The procedure would involve taking DNA from the skin or blood of a person with MND, to be implanted into a human egg from which the genetic material has been removed.  The egg would then be stimulated to develop into an embryo.  Cells would be removed from the embryo in the earliest stages of development, for use in further research.  The embryo would then be destroyed.  Therapeutic cloning has been allowed under licence from the HFEA since 2001.