Bangalore: Alan Colman, one of the scientists involved in creating Dolly, the first cloned animal, on April 17 said cloning of human beings would be a lot more difficult than in animals.

"The path of experimenting with cloning is going to be lot more difficult with primates than in animals," Colman, who created Dolly, the sheep, with other scientists in 1996 told reporters.

Colman was in Bangalore to participate in a conference organised as part of the Bangalore Bio 2003, the annual biotech event.

Colman favoured a ban on "reproductive" cloning of humans, but said that the existing methods had lacunae.

"Current methods are part of the problem. If you were to find a different method, you can achieve success… but, I can't be absolutely sure of that," he said.

Terming the Raileans sect, who claimed to have cloned two human beings, as "charlatans", Colman said, "They don't have any scientific expertise.

"As far as I am concerned, they have been making these claims to increase their membership as every member pays a percentage of their income to the sect…the failure with cloning primates itself has shown that all their claims are wrong," he said.

Colman said people protested kidney transplants 30 years ago, but now it is accepted. "What we need is government regulation and legislation to prevent misuse of cloning," he said.

PTI