LONDON – The creator of Dolly the sheep, the world’s first mammal cloned from an adult, applied for a human cloning license Tuesday to study how nerve cells go awry to cause motor neuron disease.
Ian Wilmut, who led the team that created Dolly at Scotland’s Roslin Institute in 1996, said he plans to clone cells from patients with the incurable muscle wasting disease, derive stem cells from the cloned embryo, make them develop into nerve cells and compare their development with nerve cells derived from healthy human embryos.
Such work, called therapeutic cloning because it does not result in a birth, is opposed by abortion foes and other biological conservatives because researchers must destroy human embryos to harvest the cells.
The United Nations is scheduled to vote on a convention on human cloning in October. The United States is pressing for a ban on all forms of human cloning, while Belgium heads a faction seeking a ban on reproductive cloning but the option for countries to approve therapeutic cloning.
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 variety of illnesses.
Wilmut said he hopes for a response from fertility regulators early next year and to begin work in the spring.
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.
But the latest project does not involve transplanting genetically matched stem cells, particularly challenging in motor neuron disease because the cells are so big and have to develop and extend their cablelike projections long distances to connect with muscles.
Motor neuron disease is a collection of illnesses that all lead to loss of muscle function because of nerve failure. About 350,000 people worldwide are afflicted, and about 100,000 die of it every year.
About 10 percent of those stricken live for a decade or more, such as celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking, who has a type of motor neuron disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
However, most die within five years of the onset of symptoms, which usually start in middle age.
Associated Press
Ian Wilmut, who led the team that created Dolly the sheep, wants to clone human embryos as part of his research.
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