A Canadian-based cult that claims it is well on its way to cloning the first human.

Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, a chemical engineer by training and scientific director of the Raelians, said in an interview with Reuters Health that she has hired a biochemist, a geneticist and a physician, "all US-trained," to carry out the cloning project. She said that the research is financed by a "$1 million investment from an American couple who lost their 10-month-old baby girl as the result of an accident."

A clone of that dead child will be the first baby produced by Clonaid, a for-profit subsidiary of the Raelian cult. Boisselier said the American backers are "partners in Clonaid." After the initial cloning, Clonaid will offer cloning services to others at a fee of $200,000, she said. So if all goes as planned, the American couple will not only have a new baby girl, but also a tidy return on their investment, said Boisselier.

When the Raelians announced the cloning plans last October the announcement was greeted with some skepticism. But last week a pair of well-known fertility experts, Dr. Panos Zavos of the University of Kentucky and obstetrician Dr. Severino Antinori of Rome, Italy added some credibility to the possibility that a human will soon be cloned when they said that they were undertaking a human cloning project.

Raelian spokesperson Nadine Gary said last week's announcement "was so exciting but it is not part of our work." Zavos, too, said he has no association with the Raelians.

Mark Eibert, a San Mateo, California attorney who is planning legal strategies to overcome laws that ban human cloning said Zavos and Antinori are "legitimate researchers who are highly qualified and very different from the Raelians. This is the first public announcement by people who appear to have all the talent, ability and resources necessary to accomplish the goal."

But if the Raelians are the first to successfully clone a human, Eibert said he won't complain.

"I don't care who does it first. If a Hari Krishna doctor found the cure for cancer, people would still be clamoring for that cure and history books will be more interested in the cure than in the beliefs of those who discovered it," Eibert said.

The Raelians advertise cloning services on their Web site, Boisselier said most inquiries at the site "come from homosexuals, infertile couples, and couples who have lost a child."

The cult's leader is a 54-year-old French sometime sports car driver formerly known as Claude Vorilhon but who now calls himself Rael. Raelian literature claims that the group has 50,000 members in 85 countries. Rael also performed as a singer/songwriter under the name Claude Celler. A visit to the Raelian Web site includes offers to buy his records and a testament to his success as a race car driver. Rael is "the world's fastest prophet," claims an article on the site.

Raelian headquarters is in Geneva, said Boisselier but Rael lives in Montreal, near a Raelian-owned theme park called UFOland. Clonaid is a Bahamian corporation founded by Rael and his followers 3 years ago with the announced intent of pioneering human cloning. Raelians believe that humans are the result of genetic experimentation by a race of extraterrestrial called Elohim.

Boisselier said the Elohim have not, however, shared their cloning technology with their Raelian followers. The Clonaid scientists are relying on techniques developed in animal cloning experiments, she said.

Fifty young female Raelians have volunteered to be surrogate mothers -- supplying eggs and providing womb space for embryos, Boisselier noted. Boisselier said the surrogate mother volunteers know "there is a possibility of miscarriage but as Raelians they don't smoke or drink, they eat very healthy diets so we believe the miscarriage rate will be lower than might be expected.

New York Times February 2, 2001