Cloned sheep Dolly develops arthritis

February 7, 2002

LONDON, Jan 04 (Reuters) - Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep, has

developed arthritis, raising fears that the cloning process may have

given her a genetic defect.

Professor Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Scotland said Friday

that Dolly, the first mammal cloned from a cell taken from an adult

animal, had arthritis in her left hind leg.

Arthritis is not unknown in sheep but Dolly, born in 1996, has developed

it at an unusually young age, suggesting it may be the result of a

genetic defect, possibly caused by cloning.

" The fact that Dolly has arthritis at this comparatively young age

suggests that there may be problems, " Wilmut told BBC radio.

Cloning is a hot area of medical research. Rival teams this week

announced the birth of cloned, genetically engineered pigs that may be

suitable for animal-to-human transplants.

Wilmut said it was too early to draw conclusions from Dolly's case, and

he urged biotech companies and research laboratories to share

information about the health of their cloned animals to see if there was

a common thread.

" We know already there is an unusual incidence of death in cloned

animals around the time of birth. What we need to go on studying is

whether diseases like arthritis, which tend to be associated with older

age, occur in a normal way or whether the incidence is changed, " he

said.

Researchers at PPL Therapeutics Plc, which helped to produce Dolly, and

a US joint venture company set up by Novartis AG and BioTransplant Inc

have both recently cloned pigs whose organs may be compatible with

humans.

Pig kidneys, hearts and other organs could help solve a dire shortage of

donated human tissue--and create a multi-billion dollar market for

successful companies.

Some scientists think it is inevitable that human cloning will also

become a reality one day, whether it is reproductive cloning to enable

the infertile to become parents or therapeutic cloning to create embryos

that can be used as a source of stem cells.

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