Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Five human embryos have been cloned by a team at the Shandong Stem Cell Engineering Research Center. The result, announced on February 2 at a press conference in Yantai, has also been published in the scientific web journal "Cloning and Stem Cells."

Research team leader Li Jianyuan explains that four embryos were taken from skin fibrocytes of healthy donors, while the fifth came from lymphocytes of patients with Parkinson's disease. He says that they used an innovative technique and that they intend to produce clones in order to cure illnesses, not in order to create new human beings.

Now they will try to clone compatible organs to be transplanted into patients with heart disease or other ailments.

Chen Dayuan, a well-known expert in animal cloning, hailed the results and observed that patients could replace diseased cells and organs with healthy ones from their own bodies.