The cloning of a human being, a feat once considered impossible, then unthinkable, now may be inevitable. Two internationally recognized fertility experts say they will combine their knowledge and expertise to produce a "viable, implantable [cloned] embryo within 18 to 24 months."

Panos Zavos, PhD, a professor of reproductive physiology at the University of Kentucky and owner of a fertility clinic in Lexington, tells WebMD that he and Italian counterpart Severino Antinori, MD, are undertaking the project or effort to clone a human for "therapeutic" purposes.

Because the proposal is being presented as a treatment for infertility, not all that far removed from accepted technology such as in vitro fertilization, their announcement does not appear to be setting widespread ethical alarms clanging.

But Michael Soules, MD, president of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), is not happy with the news. In a statement issued by the organization, Soules says, "ASRM has stated many times that we oppose any effort to clone a human."

Cloning technology has advanced rapidly since British scientists made headlines with Dolly, the cloned sheep. Currently, the technology is used to mass-produce stem cells, a sort of universal cell that can develop into any type of human tissue.

Simply put, clones are created by removing the nucleus, which contains the cell's genetic material, from an adult cell and transferring that nucleus into a human egg, which has had its nucleus removed. That egg is then stimulated to divide and grow into an embryo, which can then be implanted in the womb.

Zavos and Antinori are not your run-of-the-mill obstetrical team. Zavos' specialty is male infertility, and he is recognized worldwide as an expert in reproductive technology. Antinori gained worldwide attention by using in vitro fertilization to impregnate several women who were a decade or more past menopause, including one woman in her 60s who delivered a healthy baby.

Zavos would not disclose the cost of the project, but says that he and Antinori have sufficient resources. He says, too, that they want "to bring this out into the open so that governments around the world can make laws to regulate how this technology is used."

Zavos says he and Antinori have set a meeting for March 8 in Rome to reveal more details about their project and invite the Catholic Church to weigh in on the subject. The Roman Catholic Church is opposed to human cloning, as well as other reproductive technology.

Last fall, a Canadian-based cult, the Raelians, announced that it was undertaking a human cloning project at an undisclosed location in the U.S. That group, which claims humans are actually clones of an extraterrestrial race, says it received $1 million from a wealthy American couple to underwrite the research.

Mark Eibert, a San Mateo, Calif., attorney and an advocate for cloning, says the announcement by Zavos and Antinori is very exciting. "I know these people are highly qualified and very different from the Raelians. I know that Antinori has been talking for at least a year about cloning, and I see this as a very good development. This is the first public announcement by people who appear to have all the talent, ability, and resources necessary to accomplish the goal."

Stephen Post, PhD, professor of biomedical ethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, agrees the latest announcement warrants more serious consideration than the announcement by the Raelians.

For example, Post says that the Zavos-Antinori venture doesn't raise the same ethical red flags as the Raelian. The Raelians, through a for-profit company called Clonaid, said they would produce the clone of a baby girl who died as the result of an accident. The Raelians said the dead child's parents were financing their cloning project and that 50 healthy young women were volunteering to provide "donor wombs."

Zavos and Antinori, on the other hand, are "proposing human cloning as a therapeutic treatment for infertility," Post says. "It seems to me that this isn't so terribly alarming."

Post points out that this therapeutic approach stays within the couple who want to be parents, which makes it ethically more palatable. It is different, he says, from "an effort to grasp at an illusion of personal immortality."

"As long as the risks and burdens are properly and accurately presented and the potential benefits of such a new procedure not exaggerated," most of the ethical hurdles are overcome, Post says. "In that case, it would be difficult to immediately react in a negative fashion."

Still, Soules emphasizes the ASRM opposes the use of this technology, even for infertility research.

Steven Petak, MD, JD, chair of the reproductive health committee for the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and an associate with the Texas Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Endocrinology in Houston, shared his feelings with WebMD in a previous interview on the subject. "I think it's a modern Frankenstein story," Petak says. "We aren't mature enough morally and ethically to properly deal with human cloning. I think it should be postponed indefinitely. It's too much, too quickly."

Still, Eibert, who brings a background as director of an infertility support and advocacy group to the cloning debate, says he is gearing up for legal actions that may be necessary to pave the way for human cloning. "Every day I get three to four calls from infertile people asking if I know a way they can participate in cloning research," Eibert says. He says that human cloning would be a "cure for infertility, because it will work for anyone who has a spare skin cell."

Four states -- California, Louisiana, Michigan, and Rhode Island -- have laws that ban cloning, and Eibert is considering a challenge to the California law. Also, he tells WebMD, that he is considering a class-action suit, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, with the goal of requiring insurance companies to pay for in vitro fertilization and other high-tech treatments for infertility.

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