Sort of a cloned human being because it's only a blastocyst, a very earl stage embryo that's floating under the microscope like a tiny bit of soap foam. And also sort of because this blastocyst was created by inserting all the DNA from a human being into the egg of a rabbit. This little swimming experiment in interspecies biology is taking place not in some high tech office park or Ivy League research lab, but on the top floor of an emergency ward at a shabby hospital complex in mainland China. Downstairs, the reception area is lined with battered folding chairs occupied by patients with makeshift bandages or open wounds. Splashed across the linoleum is what looks like dried blood. But here on the top floor, the elevator opens to a world of $100,000 microscopes, sperm-washing machines, and egg-denucleating micropipettes. Major scientific journals won't publish research that has been described in the popular media, so I have promised not to divulge identi fying details about the experiment or the scientist performing it, whom I'll call Dr. X. But I can say that Dr. X's laboratory is one of three I visited in China where researchers are investigating interspecies clones. And I can also say that this experiment would be illicit if not completely illegal in the United States and most of the developed world. But in China it's legal, every bit of it, which is a big reason why Dr. X moved here after spending a decade at a public institution in the US.
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