CLONING CELEBRITY VISITS U.S. : SCIENTIST PUSHES BAN ON COPYING HUMANS.

Byline: Richard Saltus The Boston Globe

The Scottish scientist at the center of the cloning maelstrom arrived in the United States on Sunday saying he wants to help the government establish a ban on human cloning research for the foreseeable future.

Yet in the long term, said embryologist Ian Wilmut, the greatest benefit from the cloning technique that produced the carbon-copy sheep named Dolly may be new treatment for diseases now incurable.

His method, he said, could lead to the ability to reprogram normal cells in ailing humans so that they return to an undifferentiated state and then be sent down a different developmental road to carry out a needed function that the person's own body no longer can perform.

At a news conference, the celebrity scientist said it might be possible to take normal but aged cells from someone with Parkinson's disease, make the cells embryonic again and get them to develop with a new purpose, such as making the substance dopamine that the brain lacks in Parkinson's.

The dilemma, Wilmut said, is how scientists can reach that goal without entering the realm of science that most would like to see forbidden: creating human embryos that could be used to produce an entire new person.

Wilmut, whose announcement of the first cloning of an adult mammal last month touched off a controversy that is still raging, said his immediate goal while in America is to ``assist those who want to prohibit the use of this technique to produce a new person.'' He will testify before a congressional committee Wednesday.

At the news conference, Wilmut was asked about a report in a British newspaper saying that doctors in a fertility clinic in England had ``accidentally'' cloned an infant four years ago by dividing an embryo in half. The scientist said that what was reported was not cloning, but embryo-splitting, which is routinely done in livestock. The fertility clinic denied the report.

After two weeks of worldwide debate about the possible human applications of cloning, Wilmut said, ``I still haven't seen a suggested use for making a person that I think is appropriate.''

President Clinton ordered that no federal funds be used for human cloning research and urged a moratorium on such research by all scientists. But there is no legal ban on human cloning in the United States.