A license to extract stem cells from cloned human embryos has been granted to the creator of Dolly the sheep, Ian Wilmut. The purpose of the research is to investigate motor neuron disease.

Wilmut and his colleagues will take cells from patients with motor neuron disease (MND) and create cloned embryos using a standard technique called cell nuclear replacement.

This involves stripping a human egg of its nucleus and replacing it with the nucleus of the cell being cloned. The embryo is then artificially coaxed to divide as it would do naturally, producing stem cells. The stem cells will be coaxed into becoming neurons and then compared with neurons from people who lack the MND gene defect.