The creator of Dolly the sheep has been granted a licence to clone human embryos for medical research, it was announced today.
Professor Ian Wilmut, of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh and a team from King's College, London, plan to clone embryos to study motor neurone disease (MND). Consent was granted by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
Professor Wilmut made history when Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, was born on July 5, 1996.
His application was a joint one with Christopher Shaw, of the department of neurology, Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College, London.
Sufferers of motor neurone disease and Brian Dickie, director of research development at the Motor Neurone Disease Association, attended an event in Edinburgh to publicise the announcement.
In August last year, the HFEA gave scientists from the University of Newcastle the green light to clone human embryos. The research - which aims to treat a host of incurable diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes - has provoked fury from pro-life groups.
Earlier last year scientists in South Korea said they had produced the first definitive human cloned embryos. Professor Wilmut plans to apply the technique used to clone Dolly - cell nuclear replacement - to human embryos.
He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "It will be possible for the first time to be able to study cells from the very early stages of development that would have developed motor neurone disease had they been in a patient.
"This will create totally new opportunities to begin to understand the disease and to begin to test new drugs and to research the disease in totally new ways that can't be done in any other way," he added.
The pioneering scientist proposes to harvest human embryonic stem cells from surplus embryos or embryos created specifically for the purpose by IVF.
Dolly died in February 2003 after developing a progressive lung disease usually found in older sheep. Cloning to create copies of human babies is outlawed in Britain but therapeutic cloning has been legal since 2002.
Professor Shaw says the licence is potentially a big step forward for motor neurone disease research but they still had to raise the money to carry out the research.
"We have spent 20 years looking for genes that cause MND and to-date we have come up with just one gene. We believe that the use of cell nuclear replacement will greatly advance our understanding of why motor neurones degenerate in this disease, without having to first hunt down the gene defect," he said.
Stem cells are the master cells of the body. They appear when embryos are just a few days old and go on to develop into every type of cell and tissue in the body.
Scientists hope to be able to extract the stem cells from embryos when they are in their blank state and direct them to form any desired cell type to treat a variety of diseases, ranging from Parkinson's to diabetes.
Getting the cells from an embryo that is cloned from a sick patient could allow scientists to track how diseases develop and provide genetically matched cell transplants that do not cause the immune systems to reject the transplant.
The work, called therapeutic cloning because it does not result in a baby, is opposed by abortion foes and other biological conservatives because researchers must destroy human embryos to harvest the cells.
"What a sad and extraordinary volte face for the pioneer of animal cloning," say the anti-cloning group Comment on Reproductive Ethics. "Wilmut has always been the loudest voice in recent years warning of the dangers of mammalian cloning. And we remember how in the years following the birth of Dolly the Sheep, he assured the world he would never go near human cloning."
Professor Wilmut has repeatedly condemned the idea of human cloning to create babies, but not therapeutic cloning.
"We recognise that motor neuron disease is a serious congenital condition," said Angela McNab, the chief of the embryo research agency. "Following careful review of the medical, scientific, legal and ethical aspects of this application, we felt it was appropriate to grant the Roslin Institute a one-year licence for this research into the disease."
Professors Wilmut and Shaw plan to clone cells from patients with the disease, derive blank-slate stem cells from the cloned embryo, make them develop into nerve cells and compare their development with nerve cells derived from healthy embryos.
Jimmy Johnstone, the former Celtic player who has motor neurone disease, said: "I am delighted with this news - today's decision will help hundreds of thousands of people around the world and the people who care for them. It's about saving lives. Now I just hope that they can fast-track the research because time is the enemy for this illness.
"To those who oppose this research, I would just say this: If one of your loved ones had this terrible disease and you knew that using stem cells could lead to a cure - what would you do?"
Dr Dickie said: "Today's announcement means we are a step closer to medical research that has the potential to revolutionise the future treatment of MND.
"All along, the association has recognised that the area of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning raises moral, ethical and religious issues, and it's important that these are considered and debated.
"However, in principle, we endorse this research project, on the basis that it is legal, has a sound scientific rationale, and has the potential to bring us closer to treatments and ultimately a cure for MND."
Motor neuron disease is an umbrella term for a collection of illnesses of varying severity that all lead to loss of muscle function because of nerve failure. About 10% of those affected live for a decade or more, like celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking, who has a type of motor neuron disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
However, most die within five years of the onset of symptoms, which usually start in middle age.
An inherited defect in a single gene is responsible for about 2% of cases of the disease. Another 8% of cases are caused by some other, yet unidentified, inherited genetic abnormality.
"This is potentially a big step forward for [motor neuron disease] research," said Professor Shaw. "We have spent 20 years looking for genes that cause [motor neuron disease] and to date we have come up with just one gene. We believe that the use of cell nuclear replacement will greatly advance our understanding of why motor neurons degenerate in this disease, without having to hunt down the gene defect."
Genetics expert Peter Braude of King's College, London, who is not involved with the work, said that studying how nerves go wrong in motor neuron disease and how it can be cured is particularly difficult and that cloning is the only way to produce the cells necessary to answer such questions.
Professor Richard Gardner, the chairman of the Royal Society working group on stem cell research and cloning, said: "The granting of a second licence in the UK to carry out valuable research into therapeutic cloning highlights the potential benefits that are being pursued through this new technology.
"However, we do need to ensure that mavericks do not attempt to use this to undertake reckless experiments in the reproductive cloning of humans.
"Next week, the United Nations is meeting to discuss the form of a political declaration on human cloning. As national science academies all over the world have stressed, we want to see the message made clear.
"Individual countries should be allowed to make up their own minds about therapeutic cloning but extending these techniques to attempt to produce a cloned baby is scientifically unsafe, ethically unsound and socially unacceptable."
