Ian Wilmut, who led the team that created Dolly at Scotland's Roslin Institute in 1996, said Sept. 28 that he plans to clone cells from patients with the incurable muscle-wasting disease, derive blank-slate stem cells from the cloned embryo, make them develop into nerve cells and compare their development with nerve cells from healthy embryos.

Britain became the first country to legalize research cloning in 2001, but only now are scientists ready to start using the technique. They hope it will revolutionize medicine by providing better treatments for a wide variety of illnesses.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, Britain's fertility regulator, granted the country's first license for human cloning in August to a team at Newcastle University that hopes to create insulin-producing cells that could be transplanted into diabetics.

The Japan Times Weekly: Oct. 9, 2004
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