The comments and opinions contained may not be those of the Roslin Institute. 11 January 1988, p8 reproduced with permission of the publishers the copyright in this article is owned by the Independent Newspaper to whom requests to reproduce all or part should be addressed Charles Arthur is Science Editor, and Jeremy Laurance Health Editor of The Independent newspaper.
Nature does it all the time.
And you just know that some lunatic will be trying to find some of Hitler's DNA right now. But there could be benefits from trying. Research is currently permitted on human embryos up to 14 days and there is general agreement that this has brought benefits both in terms of understanding infertility and in other ways. But embryos are delicate and 14 days is a short time. The experiments at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, home to Dolly the sheep, have already demonstrated the potential human benefits.