Miodrag Stojkovic
University of Newcastle | Britain
Miodrag Stojkovic's biggest fear is that "people think we're crazy scientists creating the latest Frankenstein." That's because the 40-year-old Serb, a researcher with the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, could become the first person to use cells from a cloned human embryo to treat disease—if a British regulator approves the experiment later this year. Stojkovic, who helped clone mammals at the University of Munich before coming to the U.K., fled the former Yugoslavia in 1991 just before the Balkan wars broke out. "I recognized something bad was going to happen," he says. The cloning wars can seem almost as fierce. Using a technique similar to that recently demonstrated in South Korea, Stojkovic plans to create embryos by injecting a patient's own DNA into an egg from which the genetic material has been removed. He then hopes to harvest stem cells—which can develop into almost any organ—and coax them to produce insulin in diabetics. Stem cells also hold promise for victims of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and heart disease.
Trouble is, Stojkovic will discard the embryos just days after making them, and for many people that's morally unacceptable. Many religions maintain that life begins at conception and that throwing away embryos amounts to murder; "I have a clear conscience," says Stojkovic, who holds that life begins after 14 days, when the nervous system starts to form. Nonreligious groups like the London-based Human Genetics Alert warn that the techniques could be used to clone babies, something that Stojkovic opposes. "I believe in embryonic stem cells," he says. If he can come up with a cure for diabetes, a lot more people will believe along with him.—By Mark Halper
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