The scientist who created Dolly the sheep said yesterday that cloning human embryos would be an "extremely powerful" tool in understanding motor neurone disease.
Prof Ian Wilmut has applied for a licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to clone cells from sufferers of the debilitating condition to discover how the disease develops.
If granted, research could start next Easter, and it will be only the second time scientists in Britain have been given the go-ahead to clone human embryos for medical research.
Dr Brian Dickie, from the Motor Neurone Disease Association, said the research would be a breakthrough, and patients could be benefiting from it within the next 10 years. However, the pressure group Life said the human embryos should not be manufactured to benefit others.
Prof Wilmut told a conference in London he hoped to have a response from the HFEA early next year.
"We are not talking about producing a baby. This is strictly about producing cells. We would emphasise that at this time our objective is to understand the disease. We hope one day it will lead to treatment, but we're not suggesting that at the present time."
Prof Wilmut became famous in 1996 when he and a team at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh created Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. He now wants to use embryos given to him by fertility clinics for his latest research.
One set of cells would act as the experimental control and would remain normal. Another batch would have the gene that causes motor neurone disease injected into them to see how the disease developed. A further batch would involve cloning embryos to see how the genetic information from a motor neurone disease sufferer reproduces.
The research would mean up to 100,000 possible treatment drugs could be tested each year at a cost of £20,000 (€29,400), the conference heard.
In comparison, tests on human volunteers take two to three years at a cost of £10 million a year and only one drug can be tested.