The Hindu : Cloned baby in January, says doctor

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 28, 2002

International

International

Cloned baby in January, says doctor

Rome Nov. 27. The controversial Italian gynaecologist, Severino Antinori, said a woman carrying a cloned human embryo should give birth in early January.

He told journalists the woman's pregnancy was in its 33rd week, and the male foetus, weighing 2.7 kg, was healthy and had ``more than a 90 per cent chance'' of being born. He also confirmed that two other women were carrying cloned embryos — one of them in the 28th week and the other in the 27th.

He refused to name the country or countries concerned or provide further details, but said all three women were ``in the same geographical zone''.

The doctor, who first announced the pregnancies in April, insisted he had not carried out the procedure himself, and that his inolvement was merely ``cultural and scientific''. Italy is preparing to pass legislation that would impose tough penalties for anyone involved in cloning humans.

An international group of about 20 specialists including Dr. Antinori and the American doctor, Panos Zavos, announced in January of last year they intended to clone a human being in order to help sterile couples have children. Dr. Antinori said yesterday that he now had almost no contact with Dr. Pavos.

Dr. Antinori (57), became famous in 1994 when he succeeded in helping a 63-year-old post-menopausal Italian woman become pregnant through fertilisation treatment administered at his Rome clinic.

Panda

PTI reports from Beijing:

Chinese scientists are close to cloning the endangered giant panda, media report said today.

``Cloning of the giant panda, known as a `living fossil on earth' may soon be achieved in China,'' Chen dayuan, chief scientist of a panda cloning programme under the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said.

``If an implanted panda embryo can fully develop in the body of another species, cloning of the giant panda will be realised,'' Mr. Chen said. He said there were three major obstacles to the successful cloning of giant pandas, namely, preparing panda embryos by fertilising a somatic cell of a panda with an egg cell of another species, then implanting the embryo in the womb of the other species, and finally, making development of the embryo possible. So far, Chinese scientists have overcome the first two difficulties and are working on the last one.

Cloning of the giant panda would be a significant step in saving the endangered species from extinction. Statistics show that there are fewer than 1,000 giant pandas living in the wild at present and the number of female giant pandas that can produce mature eggs is less than 100.

Experts say it is necessary to research trans-species cloning technology because it is unrealistic to carry out intra-species cloning of giant pandas due to the difficulty of obtaining recipient egg cells and the scarcity of the species.

At present, a bank of somatic cells of giant pandas has been jointly established by the CAS and two local giant panda research centres in southwest China.

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