Human embryos created using a so-called “virgin conception” technique have been made in the UK for the first time. The Roslin Institute, which also cloned Dolly the sheep, reported the so-called parthenotes at a Dublin conference. They are made by stimulating a human egg to start dividing like an embryo without the addition of any genetic material from a male sperm cell. The Roslin team has so far created six parthenotes to the stage at which they would hope to mine stem cells.
