Robert Lanza- its all in the eyes

I found this picture of Robert Lanza, featured in People Magazine in 2003. The picture paints a thousand words.Would any credible scientist appear in such a sculptured way for the purposes of their science? Robert Lanza is a publicity pup. You need only look at his website to see that. 

Here's the link so you can see yourself: Robert Lanza

So who is Robert Lanza? If you just looked at his website, you will know he is the chief medical officer of Advanced Cell Technologies and an adjunct professor at Wakefield University. He was one of the team who created the first cloned human embryo for therapeutic research in 2001. His team also discovered induced pluripotent stem cells, which could be used without having to develop an embryo (ground breaking!). In 2003 he was successful in cloning a Bantang, an endangered species. In 2011, Lanza is conducting stem cell research into therapies for blindness, a worthy cause.

I have to say that although Lanza is quite an extraordinary man, I don't quite know what to make of him. On the one hand, he has been a vocal advocate for stem cell research for many years, has fought criticism from pro life supporters in terms of his cloning, and is now trying to cure blindness.

On the other hand, if you look at his blogs on the Huffington Post he has really indulged in fringe science. He's written articles like "Does Death Exist? Theory Says 'No'" "Why does life exist?" which make me think he's got some sort of Messiah Complex. Then there's the cloning of endangered animals. 

What should we make of it? What is the plan here? Lanza has publicly condemned the production of human clones. Yet I wonder whether or not the scientific community may be using animal models in preparation for the inevitability of the future use of reproductive cloning in humans? I'm not sure. One thing is for sure though, cloning is still a hot topic and has come along way since Dolly was a lamb. Its also extremely lucrative with Advance Cell Technologies being one of the hottest shares to by on the stock market.

The field of technology in animal cloning is advancing rapidly. Next time I'm going to look at an example, and how the reactions differ from when Dolly the sheep was first cloned.