Doctors Plan Human Cloning Effort
C H I C A G O, Jan. 26 -- An international group of reproductive experts plans to launch a serious effort to clone humans to provide children to infertile couples, a U.S. scientist said today.
A viable embryo, probably using stem cells or other cellstaken from the man, could be available for implantation in thewoman’s uterus within 18 months, said Dr. Panayiotis Zavos ofThe Andrology Institute of America and the Kentucky Center forReproductive Medicine and Invitro Fertilization in Lexington,Kentucky.
Zavos, a 25-year veteran in the reproductive field, hosteda conference on Thursday in Lexington where he and Italianfertility doctor Severino Antinori announced plans for thescientific coalition to clone humans.
“This is going to be the first serious effort,” Zavos saidin a telephone interview. “I do know various individual groupsthat are acting on their own, but they lack the support.”
Previous Outrage
Scientists have cloned sheep, beginning with “Dolly” inScotland in 1997, as well as mice and cows, but any suggestionsthat human clones are next have been met by outrage within thescientific community and in political and religious circles.
“As revolutionary as it may sound, as fictional as it maysound, it will be done. It’s a genie that is out of the bottleand will be controlled,” Zavos said.
He said 10 infertile couples have volunteered toparticipate, including an American pair who cannot conceivebecause the man’s testicles were severed in an accident.
Zavos said his group would hold a conference in Rome inMarch, to which a cardinal from the Vatican would be invited.The Roman Catholic Church is opposed to human cloning. Theconsortium would operate in an unnamed Mediterranean country.
May Use Stem Cells
The scientists plan to use regular cells orundifferentiated stem cells from the husband and insert theminto an ovacyte, a woman’s egg stripped of its geneticmaterial. The cell would be stimulated to divide and create anembryo equipped with all the specialty cells that make up acopy of the man, and then implanted in the wife’s uterus.
