THE scientist who cloned Britain’s first human embryo has accused his partner of breaching good scientific practice.

Miodrag Stojkovic says the dispute played a “significant part” in his decision to quit Newcastle University to take up a post this month in Spain.

His departure is a setback for therapeutic cloning in Britain. Newcastle University has admitted that its human cloning programme is now on hold, but said it was assembling a new scientific team.

Stojkovic, who was professor of embryology and stem cell biology at Newcastle, has accused Professor Alison Murdoch, his former collaborator, of ignoring good scientific practice by arranging to announce the breakthrough at a press conference.

Stojkovic, who is now deputy director of regenerative medicine at the Prince Felipe research centre in Valencia, also accuses Murdoch of trying to take the credit for his research team’s work.

He says he was so unhappy with the way Murdoch behaved that he has not spoken to her since shortly after their research was published last summer.

The Newcastle team breached convention by publicising the work before a full account had been reviewed by experts and published in full in a scientific journal. At that point only a summary of the findings had been submitted to the online journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online.

Murdoch timed the announcement to coincide with the publication of a scientific paper by a South Korean team led by the now disgraced Professor Woo-suk Hwang, which declared the creation of human stem cells from cloned embryos. The research was faked.

Stojkovic claims Murdoch planned the announcement when he was out of Newcastle. He said he was angry that arrangements had been made to announce his work in an “unprofessional” way and that he took part only because it was too late to prevent the press conference taking place.

“I was upset with the strategy to inform the press before our manuscript was accepted,” said Stojkovic. “Especially to know that the media were invited (to participate in a telephone briefing) without my agreement and knowledge. Other team members were also unaware of this development.” Newcastle insists the decision to go to the media was taken jointly.

Nature, the scientific journal, was also critical. It wrote: “The premature release of this incomplete information . . . is contrary to good scientific practice.”

Although Murdoch is widely described as the leader of Britain’s cloning team, Stojkovic insists her contribution was limited to providing human eggs from her fertility clinic for the experiments. “There are plenty of people dissatisfied with Professor Murdoch taking the publicity,” he said. “The laboratory scientists do not need someone who has been doing nothing in the laboratory and who knows nothing about the work, to represent them.”

Newcastle University insists Murdoch’s contribution was important. Professor Michael Whitaker, dean of research at its faculty of medical sciences, said: “This work was a team effort. You cannot clone an embryo without an egg and you cannot get eggs without a clinic. Professor Murdoch has had to deal with all the ethical and regulatory issues (of using patients’ eggs) and that is a huge contribution.”

A spokesman for Newcastle University admitted that Murdoch had asked Reproductive BioMedicine Online, without the agreement of Stojkovic, to delay publication of the summary until the day the Koreans published their research. But he claimed Stojkovic had approved the statements released to the media.

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