ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997 TAG: 9703030068
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LONDON
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE said Saturday it had funded the research when it was ``a theoretical idea.'' - The British government is cutting off funding to the research project that produced the first cloned mammal because it has been a success.
The decision, announced Saturday by the Ministry of Agriculture, disappointed Professor Grahame Bulfield, director of the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh. He said the ministry had financed the research for eight years and now provided 65 percent of its funding.
``I will move heaven and earth to keep resources in that cloning program,'' he told The Daily Telegraph.
The ministry said the institute's $411,000 grant will be halved in April and cut entirely by April 1998.
``We fund hundreds of projects at research institutions, and this one has been a success and the contract is being concluded. We funded it when it was a theoretical idea, and the commitment was never long-term,'' a ministry spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
``Perhaps if the project is to progress, then it is up to industry to look at the commercial elements and fund it that way,'' the spokesman added.
The rest of the institute's financing came from PPL Therapeutics, a Scottish biotechnology company headquartered outside Edinburgh, whose share prices have soared since last weekend's announcement that a sheep had been cloned from its mother.
Roslin scientists have said the cloning was the result of much hit-and-miss experimentation and needs to be refined through further research.
The lamb, now 7 months old and called Dolly, was cloned from a 6-year-old ewe, using tissue from the ewe's udder. Scientists previously thought a whole mammal could not be regenerated from mature body cells that were specialized for something other than reproduction.
News of the cloning - and the specter of possible cloning of human beings - generated widespread ethical debate and calls throughout the Western world for greater government control of cloning experiments.
The day after Dolly's existence was announced, President Clinton asked a bioethics advisory commission to review the implications for human beings. The 15-member European Union, which already bans human cloning, asked a scientific committee to see whether other forms of genetic manipulation should be regulated.
A poll released Saturday showed that 93 percent of Americans think cloning human beings is a bad idea; 66 percent think it was a bad idea to clone animals such as sheep; and 56 percent say they would not eat meat from cloned animals.
The TIME/CNN poll had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
Bulfield, however, said there had been an ``encouraging'' response from industry. Cloning could let companies precisely copy animals carrying proteins valuable in drug-making, or perfectly duplicate cattle that yield good beef.
Bulfield said he heard a rumor of government funding cuts in November but wasn't officially notified until last week. The Ministry of Agriculture insisted the institute had been notified in November that cuts were imminent.
With less than two months to find $205,000, Bulfield was scrambling.
``I am very concerned. This is a top-priority project at the institute. I do not know where the money will come from, but I will do everything in my power to allow it to continue,'' he said.
Dr. Ian Wilmut, who is leading the project, told Sky TV it was ``disappointing and somewhat ironic'' that news of the cuts started circulating just ``as we were having some startling success.''
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB