The announcement caused a furor of public protest in South Korea. Researchers reportedly stopped their work before implanting the embryo for ethical reasons. However, scientists around the world questioned the veracity of the report and it was never proved. The Korean government had not banned cloning at the time. The patient's nucleus would then take over the hybrid cell, but because an egg is required to organize tissues into an embryo, no new organism would result.
Scientists attempt to clone the woolly mammoth.
Scientists from the Netherlands, France, Russia and the US teamed up in an effort to clone the extinct wooly mammoth from a sample frozen for 23,000 years. The mammoth was removed from its ice encasement in a Siberian ice field and flown to Khatanga, Russia. The study includes possible cloning and embryo implantation in a modern elephant. While this project is continuing, the odds of finding intact cells to clone are very small, researchers are unlikely to succeed. Britain has issued a patent for the cloning process that created Dolly.