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 ORK begins next month on creating the word's first cloned baby it is intended to be given to a couple who want to recreate their 10 month old on who died in a hospital operation. The controversial process is being undertaken in America bya secretive commercial organization called clonaid, registered in the Bahamas.
A geneticist, a biochemist and an in-vitro ferllisation expert have been commissioned to produce a genetic copy of the dead baby. The unnamed couple, described as deadly serious about their ambition, have paid 3,00,000 pounds to fund the work. Clonaid has recruited 20 egg donors and 50 volunteer surrogate mothers to carry the pregnancy. The clone will be created by inserting the nuclei of cells from the dead baby in to cell "envelops" from the egg donors.
The project leader is Brigitte bosselier, a French-born biochemist and scientific director of chnaid. She has two doctorates and teaches chemistry at Hamilton college in New York state. She said the attempts at successful implantation will begin shortly, with the intention that the first cloned baby should be born by the end of ear "for us the purpose of this project is philosophical: to create eternal life," she said. Clonaid is owned by the wealthy raelian movement, at religious cult which believes that all humans are cloned from a group of alien scientists from another planet. A south Korean team already claims to have created a human cloned embryo, but nobody has attempted to implant it in a women. Animal cloning has produced huge numbers of fetuses and offspring with gross abnormalities, and most scientist have shied away from the inevitable condemnation that would follow the creation of a deformed human baby.
Apart from cloning, the main preoccupation of raelians is the creation of an embassy to welcome aliens arriving on earth. Unlike Britain, America has no legal ban on cloning but research has been hampered by a ban on the use of public funds. The country's food and drug administration is monitoring the raelian initiative.
Although some experts doubt whether the raelians have the expertise to achieve success, other say it is simply a question of mathematical probability: 20 egg donors and 50 surrogate mother would probably be enough. The raelians have 50,000 members worldwide. Boisselier and 100 people have put their names on the waiting list for treatment, including five British couples, two of whom are homosexual.
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