Dr. Severino Antinori

Will 2003 be the year of the first human clone? An Italian fertility expert says a patient will give birth to a cloned baby early next year but experts, including one who helped create Dolly the sheep, are skeptical.

Dr. Severino Antinori told a news conference in Rome on Tuesday that the cloned baby is due in January.

The maverick doctor gained fame nearly a decade ago when he helped a 62-year-old women give birth following fertility treatment with a donated egg, but he has revealed few details about his latest project. All he would say was that the cloned fetus was healthy and weighed roughly 6 pounds.

Other experts in the field have grave doubts.

Cloning experts doubt Antinori or his unknown colleagues have the expertise to clone a human. Although sheep, mice and pigs have been cloned, scientists have not yet produced a carbon copy of any primate.

Antinori did not produce any evidence so scientists do not know if he has achieved anything or if he is just seeking publicity.

Dolly the sheep was cloned using a technique called nuclear transfer. The nucleus of an egg cell was removed and replaced with the nucleus from a cell of the animal to be cloned.

It is a skilled and risky technique. Only a small percentage of clones result in pregnancies and there is a high percentage of miscarriages and deformities.

Even animal clones that look healthy may have genetic abnormalities or be predisposed to a decreased life span because the cells used in the cloning process acquire DNA damage as they age.

Antinori has not given any clues about how the human embryo was cloned nor who the progenitor, the person who has been cloned, is. "We will wait and we will see what the DNA studies show if a baby is born," one of the experts said. "I just hope it will not have abnormalities."

(Agencies)