Dolly's legacy

摘要

Ten years ago, given a week's notice by Nature's usual embargoed press release, journalists were gearing up for what many of them recognized as the hottest science story for years. The press release announced the cloning of sheep from adult cells. A journalist on a British Sunday newspaper, The Observer, picked up the same story from a film production company and ran with it ahead of the embargo date. Furious editors and writers on other newspapers scrambled to catch up. "It is the prospect of cloning people, creating armies of dictators, that will attract most attention," said The Observer. And so it proved. Within days the president of the United States, the head of the European Commission, the Vatican and many others were calling for a review of the regulations on cloning research, if not an outright ban.