Scientist Going to the Source for His Clone

A Chicago physicist who provoked controversy earlier this year by announcing plans to clone humans, says the first person he will try to copy is himself.

Richard Seed said his wife, Gloria, has agreed to carry an embryo that would be created by combining the nucleus of one of his cells with a donor egg, the Boston Globe reported in its Sunday editions.

Seed declined to give his wife’s age, but he described her as “post-menopausal.” He refused to give details of how the pregnancy would work.

Seed’s plan to clone humans drew fire from people who said it was immoral and carries the risk of stillbirths or abnormal fetuses.

“I have decided to clone myself first to defuse the criticism that I’m taking advantage of desperate women with a procedure that’s not proven,” the 69-year-old said Saturday at a meeting of the Assn. for Politics and the Life Sciences, a group of academic researchers.

Seed has three Harvard degrees--including a doctorate--but no medical degree and no institutional backing. Also, California and Michigan have banned human cloning, and dozens of other states are considering bans. Mainstream scientists have unofficially agreed to a five-year moratorium on the practice.

Nonetheless, Seed said he has been invited to set up research laboratories in two other countries, and that he will move his Human Clone Clinic to Mexico if Congress forbids his research. He also has vowed to produce a pregnancy with a human clone within 2 1/2 years.

Cloning would be the first step in discovering immortality, Seed said.