Cloning: a gift or a gamble?

Initially diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, two years ago he was told it was actually multi-system atrophy, one of a number of conditions known as Parkinson's plus syndromes.

"I get a tremor in both hands. It's not there all the time but it can be quite bad, and in the last 18 months I've started shuffling," he says. "Any physical activity would leave me exhausted and I would have to go and lie down for three or four hours. It hasn't affected my mind at all, although sometimes there is a slowness between thinking and doing. I'm reasonably OK, apart from the shuffling and being generally slow."

The former RAF paint-sprayer, now 43 and living in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, had originally been told that life expectancy for someone with multi-system atrophy was just a few years, although he has since discovered someone who has been living with the disease for 23 years. In the years since he was diagnosed there have been numerous reports of possible treatments, none of which have ultimately measured up.

But news of a breakthrough in human cloning research has provided perhaps the best hope yet of an end to his ordeal. By removing DNA from human egg cells, and then implanting cells from an adult into the empty egg cell, American scientists claim to have cloned embryos, which could then be used to create human tissue. This, in turn, could theoretically be used to treat conditions including Shaun's.

"It sounds great, although whether it is actually going to work is another question," he says. "It would be like sticking new cells in your body, to take over from the cells that are not there. Quite often people say there is a cure and it isn't, but this sounds as though it could help any illness that is the result of cell loss." This could used to treat a range of disorders, including Parkinson's and diabetes, according to Dr Mary Herbert, scientific director of reproductive medicine at Newcastle City Hospitals NHS Trust. "The scope of this is enormous," she says. "But there is going to be a huge divergence in people's responses to it. "I imagine somebody suffering from Parkinson's is going to think a whole lot differently from somebody who isn't, and I think what we need to ask ourselves is what we would do if our child had a disorder that could be treated by stem cell therapy."

The research carried out in the US has raised the prospect of fully-grown human clones, but this is a long way from being turned into reality, according to Dr Herbert. "To take the next step, to reproductive cloning where we clone a human being, the embryo would need to be placed in a uterus in a human.

"We know from the work on Dolly the sheep that there is a massive loss rate in that and a high rate of abnormalities, and it is not a stage that can be translated into human cloning without massive losses. This is an awful long way from making a baby."

The fear of human cloning led US President George Bush yesterday to brand the possibility "morally wrong", and last night emergency legislation to ban the practice was rushed through the House of Lords. The move would stop cloned embryos from being implanted into wombs, but it would not stop therapeutic cloning, with the techniques used by the American scientists.

But attempting to ban research altogether may not ultimately prove successful, according to Ashley Wilton, head of Newcastle University's Law School and a lecturer in medical law. "You could ban it completely, but you are not going to hold back the tide of scientists, who think they are going to cure the world of serious illnesses," he says.

"The problem is that if you stopped where these American scientists stopped, it may not be so controversial, but once you have broken through this barrier it is only a small step to implant an embryo into a woman. There are real dangers in it, and the question is how can these dangers best be addressed? "You could leave it to the scientists, but history suggests that is probably not a safe course. I think the public will want to ban it, that is probably the short-term answer, because the public isn't ready for it. But, in the long-term, licensing is probably going to be a better route. Then you can get the benefits, but without the excesses."

But for Professor John Burn, medical director of the Institute of Human Genetics, part of Newcastle's Centre of Life, even a short-term ban would be a backward step, holding back the medical benefits for the sake of a risk which is not rooted in reality.

'There is a perceived danger of some reproductive cloning of people, but that is science fiction and is essentially not a problem," he says. "We don't need somebody putting a blanket ban on everything, just when we're on the point of seeing this work.

'It is an important step if they have got human cells to grow, but it doesn't really take you very much closer to reproductive cloning, because it doesn't get away from the fact that if you used this technique to make babies, the majority of them would be severely deformed."

But the potential benefits of this research are huge, he says. "It means you can treat all sorts of damaged tissues by being able to cultivate cells in a dish, so if they were put into the person who donated the nucleus they would not be rejected.

"It means we could grow skin to treat new babies, put new cells in someone with Parkinson's, or treat somebody with diabetes. These are real, tangible developments that have an entirely possible approach to treatment. The danger is we could end up losing some very important new technology for fear somebodyabuses it." If anyone did want to clone a human, they would not do it using the techniques of the American scientists, he says. Instead, this would involve fertilising an egg and taking it to the point of becoming a human being, and then replacing the nucleus with that of someone else. "Provided you have sensible safeguards, then there is no great threat in this, and there is really very great potential, in all sorts of directions," he says. "Medical scientists can see at a glance that there is real potential, much more than in gene therapy. We clearly need to address the ethical debate and ensure that our safeguards are adequate and we're not being excessively restrictive.

"We could get to being able to use therapeutic interventions quite quickly, but we need to be doing this research to find out what is possible with these cells." But there are legitimate fears over the possible use of this technology, according to Dr Tom Shakespeare, director of the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Institute at the Centre for Life. "There are ethical concerns about the creation of embryos for treatment amongst many, manypeople," he says.

"These are clearly embryos which might, if implanted, become humans. That doesn't mean you can't do things with them, but you have to be very careful. It is not a reason for hysteria, but it is a reason to be cautious.

"My gut view is that we shouldn't manipulate embryos, but I don't have a settled view on that. I'm not against abortion, and we already have IVF and we're using embryos in all sorts of ways already, but these new technologies raise all sorts of issues.

"We have to raise questions about why we want to clone a human, and about the rights of the child that might be created as a result of cloning. And the ability to manipulate embryos raises the possibility of manipulating the genetic characteristics of babies, and that is something many people are concerned about. We are right to feel it is probably inappropriate to grow human tissue from embryos, but that has to be balanced with the benefits."

Even if cloning research is allowed to go ahead, according to Prof Burn it could be ten years before it begins to show direct benefits to patients. But, however far away it may seem, it still offers a glimmer of hope to Shaun Wood.

"We need strict guidelines as to how far we should go, but I feel that we should definitely go ahead," he says. "I think we should weigh it up against killing off all the illnesses, and I think we should do it."