The scientist who created Dolly the sheep, a breakthrough that provoked headlines around the world a decade ago, is to abandon the cloning technique he pioneered to create her. Prof Ian Wilmut’s decision to turn his back on ‘therapeutic cloning’, just days after US researchers announced a breakthrough in the cloning of primates, will send shockwaves through the scientific establishment. He and his team made headlines around the world in 1997 when they unveiled Dolly, born July of the year before. But now he has decided not to pursue a licence to clone human embryos, which he was awarded just two years ago, as part of a drive to find new treatments for the devastating degenerative condition, Motor Neuron disease. Prof Wilmut, who works at Edinburgh University, believes a rival method pioneered in Japan has better potential for making human embryonic cells which can be used to grow a patient’s own cells and tissues for a vast range of treatments, from treating strokes to heart attacks and Parkinson’s, and will be less controversial than the Dolly method, known as ‘nuclear transfer.’ His announcement could mark the beginning of the end for therapeutic cloning, on which […]