London: Professor Ian Wilmut, Creator of the sheep Dolly has decided to shun cloning, leaving the scientific world in a state of shock. His decision to turn his back on therapeutic cloning came some days after researchers in the United States had announced a breakthrough in the cloning of primates.
Professor Ian Wilmut and his team made headlines around the world in 1997 when they cloned Dolly from an adult cell. But now he has decided not to pursue a license to clone human embryos, which he was awarded two years ago.
"I decided a few weeks ago not to pursue nuclear transfer," the media reported on Saturday, quoting Prof Wilmut, who works at Edinburgh University in the United Kingdom.
In fact, according to Prof Wilmut, a rival method that pioneered in Japan has better potential for making human embryonic cells and will be less controversial than the Dolly method, known as the nuclear transfer.
The scientist has admitted that the Japanese approach is easier to accept socially and can be used for a range of treatments, from treating strokes to heart attacks and Parkinson's.
The Japanese method comes from the research by Prof Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University, which suggests a way to create human embryo stem cells without the need for human eggs and without the need to create and destroy human cloned embryos, which is bitterly opposed by the pro-life movement.
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