A Chicago scientist says he's ready to launch an enterprise that will clone babies for infertile couples - a radical leap forward in the use of genetics technology and one that is likely to trigger government action to stop it.

Physicist Richard Seed told National Public Radio on Tuesday he intends to set up "a human clone clinic ... and make it a profitable fertility clinic." His short-term aim, he told the Chicago Sun-Times, is to produce "a two-month pregnancy in a female within a year and a half's time." Seed told NPR that if the initial clinic proves profitable, he hopes to open a chain of 10 or 20 clone shops around the United States.

"I've said many times that you can't stop science," Seed told NPR. "...God made man in his own image. God intended for man to become one with God. ... Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in becoming one with God."

Opinion in the scientific community is divided on the question of Seed's prospects for success. But the physicist does have a track record in developing new reproductive technology.

In humans, the method would start with a single cell that would be subjected to an electrical charge to fuse its genes with a donated egg from which the genes have been removed. The embryo thus created, a genetic twin to the DNA donor would be raised in a laboratory, then transplanted into a surrogate mother.

The news of Dolly's cloning triggered an international debate on the ethics of using the technology to produce humans as well as calls for government action to forbid such a practice.

The Clinton administration announced today it is likely to renew its campaign for a federal law to declare a five-year moratorium on human cloning which legal and ethical issues are studied. Seed, however, said he is determined to proceed despite any US government ban. He told The Boston Globe that if his project is blocked in the United States, he'll move the effort to Mexico.

(c) Wired News