THE successful cloning of a sheep proves it is possible to clone dead humans who have been frozen according to strict guidelines, the Scottish researchers who cloned the animal said yesterday.
A seven month old sheep called Dolly was revealed to the world earlier this week as the first clone of an adult animal.
But no mention was made until yesterday that freezing was part of the process used to carry out the cloning by scientists at the Roslin Institute and PPL Therapeutics in Edinburgh.
Then Mr Ron James, PPL's managing director, told Sky television news: "The cells from which Dolly was produced were, in fact, at one stage frozen."
Scientists on the Roslin Instilute team had previously warned there was "no way that we can clone from a frozen animal or human." However, they said yesterday this referred to animals or humans placed straight into freezers after their deaths.
They added that human cells subjected to controlled freezing, using special protective chemicals like those used with Dolly, could technically be cloned, bringing the image of the person back to life.
A geneticist, Dr Patrick Dixon, said after Mr James made his comments on Sky News that "this means we will be able to reproduce those who pay to put their bodies into deep freeze storage it is only the method of freezing that is critical.
The Edinburgh scientists produced an exact copy of an adult sheep by taking a cell from the udder of a sheep, extracting the genetic information and placing it in an unfertilised egg from which the original chromosomes had been removed.
Human cloning is illegal in Britain but not in several other countries, and moves to introduce new legislation have now started around the world as a result of fears raised by the research.