LONDON, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - A British scientist who led researchers who created Dolly the Sheep is to abandon cloning using embryos for a rival method which makes stem cells without them, the Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.

Professor Ian Wilmut, of Edinburgh University, gained celebrity but also attracted criticism from some religious groups and pro-life campaigners after being involved in the cloning of the first mammal from an adult cell in 1996.

PARIS, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - A man's testicles could one day provide a plentiful and accessible supply of adult stems cells to help him fight off disease or regenerate damaged organs, according to a study published Wednesday.

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York have already isolated the multi-purpose cells in mice, and successfully coaxed them to grow into cardiac cells, brain cells and working blood vessel tissue.

WASHINGTON, Aug 2, 2007 (AFP) - While faking the first human embryo-cloned stem cells, disgraced South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk in 2004 unwittingly created the first human stem cell derived by parthenogenesis, US scientists said Thursday.

An analysis of Hwang's work published Thursday in the monthly Cell Stem Cell by Kitai Kim and George Daley of the Children's Hospital Boston Stem Cell Program, shows that the stem cells Hwang obtained contained genetic material only from the donor egg and had not been cloned from a human embryo.