One day—a day probably no more distant than the first wedding anniversary of a couple who are now teenage sweethearts—a man and a woman will walk into an in-vitro fertilization clinic and make scientific history. They will be desperate for a very special child, a child who will elude a family curse. To create their dream child, doctors will fertilize a few of the woman’s eggs with her husband’s sperm, as IVF clinics do today.

But then they will inject an artificial human chromosome, carrying made-to-order genes like pearls on a string, into the fertilized egg. One of the genes will carry instructions ordering cells to commit suicide. Then the doctors will place the embryo into the woman’s uterus. If her baby is a boy, when he becomes an old man he, like his father and grandfather before him, will develop prostate cancer. But the cell-suicide gene will make his prostate cells self-destruct.

The man, unlike his ancestors, will not die of the cancer. And since the gene that the doctors gave him copied itself into every cell of his body, including his sperm, his sons will beat prostate cancer, too.When the pioneers of gene therapy first requested government approval for their experiments in 1987, they vowed they would never alter patients’ eggs or sperm. That was then. This is now. One of those pioneers, Dr. W. French Anderson of the University of Southern California, recently put the National Institutes of Health on notice.

Within two or three years, he said, he would ask approval to use gene therapy on a fetus that has been diagnosed with a deadly inherited disease. The therapy would cure the fetus before it is born. But the introduced genes might inadvertently slip into the child’s egg (or sperm) cells, too. If that happens, the genetic change would affect that child’s children unto the nth generation. "Life would enter a new phase," says biophysicist Gregory Stock of UCLA, "one in which we seize control of our own evolution."

How soon might we design our children? The necessary pieces are quickly falling into place. As Tuft University’s Krimsky says, "We know where to start." The harder question is this: do we know where to stop?

The US biotechnology company, Geron, has acquired the rights to the technology used to clone Dolly the sheep. They intend to combine it with their expertise in cell technology to clone patients' cells for transplant. If successful, this would enable "spare parts" to be used to treat diseases such as strokes, Alzheimer's disease and muscular dystrophy.

The deal brings together three key technologies at the cutting edge of biotechnology - stem cells, telomerase and nuclear transfer cloning - and the powerful combination holds the promise of significant medical advances. The combined technology could be used to create replacement human tissue which has no problems of immune system rejection.

The only applications Geron cannot use the cloning technology for are human reproductive cloning, banned on ethical grounds, and the production of drugs in the milk of animals, the rights to which have already been given to PPL Therapeutics.

Controversial American scientist, Dr. Richard Seed, who wants to begin cloning humans, said that he is opening up a clinic in Japan where there are no laws forbidding human cloning. He said, "It seems all countries or political groups have some reservations on human cloning. But there is an existing patient demand for the service." Previously, he said he wanted to clone himself but now has decided to clone his wife within two years. He also said about human clones, "The clone is an identical twin of a donor, just 40 years younger. If you don't tell, nobody will know. Everybody has seen children that look just like their parents."

Canadian researchers have succeeded in cloning 3 goats capable of producing spider's silk in their milk, AFP reported. Using the sametechnology that created Dolly the sheep in Britain, the cloned goats were genetically engineered to carry the silk-producing gene of a spider, according to the Montreal-based company, Nexia Biotechnologies. Spiders silk is used to produce Biosteel, a hardy fabric much in demand in aerospace, engineering and medicine. Nexia said its cloning success would pave the way for large-scale production of the fabric, until now produced in limited quantities. Cloning goats with the spiders gene has a 100 percent success rate, the firm said.

Several laboratories are now engaged in a race to clone a human being, according to Dr Richard Seed who sparked international outrage in 1998 when he announced his intention to make a copy of himself. Dr Seed, who is in London for a conference on reproductive ethics, predicted the first clone would be announced within two years. "I know of one other clinic that is racing to produce the first human clone and I suspect there are two or three others," he told the BBC. Dr Seed has now said that his wife Gloria will be the first subject to be cloned - and she will also bear the child.

Many nations around the world already have legislation to outlaw reproductive cloning. However, many scientists believe the technology will find a use, most probably in transplant medicine.

"Being Human" - the science and philosophy of cloning has been organised by CORE (Comment on Reproductive Ethics). Other speakers will include Baroness O'Neill from the UK Government's Human Genetics Advisory Commission (HGAC) and embryologist Dr Anne McLaren who sits on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). It was the HGAC and the HFEA that recommended therapeutic cloning to the UK Government as an acceptable use of the technology on humans.

US scientists have genetically-engineered chickens to grow basic "legs" instead of wings. Researchers at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, took a gene normally found only in chicken legs and transferred it to the forming wings of chick embryos. The resulting structures lost many of their wing characteristics and gained those of a leg.

Feathers vanished, the beginnings of clawed fingers appeared at the end of limbs, and muscles usually confined to the leg could clearly be seen. The scientists believe the work may eventually help us to understand how legs and arms develop in humans, raising the possibility - one day - of preventing or correcting deformities.