Human Embryo Cloned For First Time In Britain

A human embryo has been cloned for the first time in Britain, where such work is strictly regulated, scientists announced. Scientists at Newcastle University, the first in Britain to obtain a licence to carry out therapeutic cloning for stem cell research, said they had successfully produced a blastocyst -- a tiny, early-stage embryo consisting of a hollow ball of cells -- cloned from a human cell using nuclear transfer. Scientists hope the work will eventually lead to successful treatments for degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, or for the paralysed victims of spinal injuries. The announcement came on the same day that a team of South Korean scientists announced they had developed the first lines of patient-specific stem cells, designed to match the DNA of a specific person.

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