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This powerful new documentary looks at the controversial attempts to clone a human being. Amid claims and counterclaims by various groups around the world, this programme documents for the first time the secretive efforts of a small group of doctors and scientists to develop their cloning techniques in the face of ferocious opposition from many governments and eminent members of the international scientific community. Peter Williams follows the team and is given unprecedented and exclusive access to Dr. Panos Zavos, a first generation Cypriot-American, and his team in his laboratory in Lexington, Kentucky.
The cameras follow Dr. Zavos to various locations around the world including the Ukraine and Saudi Arabia as he attempts to find a country which will allow him to perform the cloning procedure.
We see him talking to patients and scientists and to the 46-year-old woman who will see herself cloned later on in the series. He explains in detail the science and controversial techniques that will produce the first human cloned baby and film footage is shown for the first time of the formation of a ten-cell human embryo.
The documentary features the heated ethical arguments and counter arguments that surround this scientific breakthrough, including an extraordinary confrontation between Dr. Zavos and academics at Oxford University led by IVF expert Lord Winston.
Many of his team have been forced into hiding by the world’s press and refuse to allow themselves to be identified during the course of this film. The programme is a combination of hard science and observational documentary. It illuminates the hidden world of the political pressures that hamper scientific progress and it reveals, without betraying confidences, the motivation of scientists and patients in this groundbreaking work.