A SELF-EMPLOYED businessman is poised to become one of the first Britons to be cloned. Bryan O’Regan could soon be replicated in an experiment being conducted in South Korea.

The 51-year-old, who suffers from motor neurone disease (MND), has put himself forward for therapeutic cloning research, even though he knows he may not live long enough to benefit from the technology.

“I could last another six months or two or three years. But if I can help others, if we can learn from this in future, that would be worthwhile,” O’Regan said.

“I have told doctors that if they want to clone me they can. I would be prepared to do this because it could lead to a cure for motor neurone disease.

“I think stem cells from cloned embryos offer a strong possibility of a treatment.”

O’Regan is a patient of Professor Christopher Shaw at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London who, along with Professor Ian Wilmut, the creator of Dolly the sheep, has linked up with a South Korean cloning team to research a cure for MND.

Although Wilmut has a licence to clone human embryos up to two weeks in Britain, he says that by joining the international experts in South Korea who have already created 31 clones and 11 batches of embryonic stem cells, he will speed the development of cures for British patients.

The collaboration brings together two cloning pioneers — Wilmut and Professor Woo-suk Hwang of South Korea, who cloned the first human embryo last year.

The British experts plan to send cells from the skin of British patients to South Korea where they will be cloned. They will then derive embryonic stem cells — with the potential to form any tissue in the body — from days-old clones. These stem cells will be shipped back to Britain where they will be studied by Shaw and other researchers from Wilmut’s team.

The eventual aim would be to implant them into a donor patient to regenerate dead cells. Because they would have been created from the same genetic material, they would be less likely to be rejected.

Last week the Koreans announced they had created more than 30 cloned human embryos and had dismantled them to grow the first embryonic stem cells genetically similar to the patient from which they were cloned.

O’Regan, from London, is likely to be one of Shaw’s first patients to be cloned. The self-employed businessman has lost his ability to walk since he was diagnosed with MND 18 months ago. He can take a few steps around his flat holding on to the walls, but is otherwise dependent on his wheelchair.

Although he takes medication that can slow the progression of the illness, he knows it is only a matter of time before he loses the use of his arms. His ability to speak and swallow will also be affected.

O’Regan’s father was diagnosed with the same disease at the age of 51 and died two years later, so he knows what to expect. He rejects claims by critics that creating an embryo that is an exact copy of himself for spare body parts is unethical. “The embryo would only be a few days old,” he said. “It doesn’t develop into a human, which would be unethical.”

In South Korea, as in Britain, it is illegal to allow cloned embryos to grow for more than two weeks.

Wilmut last week told a conference in Edinburgh that he was moved to do all he can for MND patients when he met a sufferer who was dependent on others to do everything for him.

“When I see someone like that, I am disappointed that we cannot move more quickly,” he said.

Shaw said the link-up with the South Koreans would enable the team to generate embryonic stem cells more quickly. “If we do not collaborate with them it could take us several years,” he said.

“Our patients don’t have long. I could not justify not working with the Koreans.”

Their work, which will need to obtain ethical approval before it goes ahead, has stirred opposition. Josephine Quintavalle of the Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Core) campaign group said it was unnecessary and unethical because there had been progress in the development of adult stem cells, such as those from bone marrow, without the need to clone.

“It is not accurate to suggest that cloning embryos is the only possible treatment for motor neurone disease,” she said. “Research using adult stem cells to treat it is years ahead of the embryonic work.”

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