London, England -- Ian Wilmut, the Scottish scientist who led the research
team that cloned Dolly the sheep, said on Saturday that he will apply for a
license to conduct human cloning in the United Kingdom, Britain's Sunday
Times reports.

Wilmut said his primary goal is to use the procedure to destroy unborn
children and create stem cell lines for research into "complex" medical
conditions such as heart disease. He added that he might also use the cells
to investigate how people respond to certain medicines.

Embryonic stem cell research in the United Kingdom has thus far only been
conducted on surplus human embryos created through fertility treatments, but
Wilmut said he plans to gather eggs from women undergoing reproductive tract
surgery for his research.

Wilmut said that his research will be conducted solely for medical purposes,
adding that he has no intention of implanting cloned embryos into a woman's
uterus. He said that reproductive cloning is "illegal ... unethical and
unsafe," noting that cloned animals often display genetic and physical
abnormalities.

Wilmut's proposal must first be approved by the ethics and management
committee at the Roslin Institute in Scotland, where he plans to conduct the
research. Wilmut must also receive approval to conduct the experiments from
the U.K. Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, which regulates all
therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research in the country. Wilmut
said he believes the entire review and approval process will take about six
months.