Dolly sheep's creator proposed to clone or genetically alter babies to prevent serious hereditary diseases.

"The use of genetic and reproductive technologies is not a step backwards into darkness, " said Ian Wilmut, the team leader of Dolly sheep, which was cloned from an adult cell.

Wilmut, who has repeatedly said he is "implacably opposed" to cloning a human being, said however, in his forthcoming book After Dolly serialized today in The Daily Telegraph, when the techniques are shown to be safe, society should consider cloning with genetic modification to prevent the birth of babies with serious diseases.

The Edinburgh University professor argues in the book, written with the Telegraph's science editor, Roger Highfield, that cloning an IVF embryo consisting of 100 or so cells is not the same as cloning a person.

The process of cloning, -nuclear transfer-, culminated in the birth of Dolly in 1996. Cloning also makes it possible to carry out precise genetic corrections, as demonstrated in 1997 when Wilmut's team unveiled Polly, a sheep altered to secrete a human blood clotting protein in her milk.

The same method potentially offers a much more efficient way to achieve healthy births than current methods of screening embryos for harmful genes.

Working with colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry, in London, Wilmut is expecting to clone embryos from people with the motor neurone disease ALS to improve understanding of the devastating disorder.

Source: Xinhua