Woman 'carrying first cloned baby'

A woman is expecting the world's first cloned baby, according to the controversial Italian doctor who vowed to clone a human.

Dr Severino Antinori, who became an international scientific pariah after saying last year he wanted to clone human embryos "within six months", made his announcement at a conference in Abu Dhabi on genetic engineering, it emerged today.

"Our project is at a very advanced stage," the Gulf News reported him saying. "One woman among thousands of infertile couples in the programme is eight weeks pregnant." He refused to say where the eight-weeks pregnant woman was from. "We have nearly 5,000 infertile couples in this project now," added Dr Antinori, known as the "father of impossible children".

Dr Antinori, of the International Centre for the Study of Physiopathy of Human Reproduction in Rome, and colleague Dr Panos Zavos, a Kentucky infertility expert, had announced their plans at a Washington conference last year.

The science world is otherwise unanimous that, ethical issues aside, the scientific risk of human cloning made any attempt premature and fraught with risks. Human cloning is banned in the US and Europe, including the UK, and most countries around the world.

The technique is basically the same as in the production of Dolly the sheep, and other mammal clones.

It involves taking the genetic material out of a human egg, and transferring the DNA-packed nucleus of an adult cell into the husk. The resulting egg is implanted into the uterus. In the few cases in which the procedure is successful - scores fail for every successful pregnancy - this produces a clone 97 per cent identical to that of the DNA in the adult cell.

Last November a US biotechnology company published a study that detailed the creation of three human cloned embryos of six cells each. It was widely criticised. Chinese scientists claimed to have produced early clones, but these were destroyed after a few weeks.

A number of studies have found potentially serious abnormalities in some cloned animals, including some that might have led to hidden mental problems. Recently it was revealed that Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was suffering from arthritis, apparently the result of premature ageing.

Dr Antinori said the risk of deformity in human clones was four per cent, rising to six per cent in women over 40. "I concede the risk but you have to be careful," he said.

C. Ben Mitchell, Senior Fellow of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in the US, said: "If Antinori's claim is true, it is a case of renegade science pursued at the risk of life." Paul Tully of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child said: "This opens up the whole vista of genetically engineering human beings."

A spokeswoman for the British Medical Association said Dr Antinori's claim was "deeply worrying". She said: "The BMA is totally opposed to human reproductive cloning on the grounds of safety and ethical acceptability."