(An adult has about 50 billion cells.) They showed that those cells could act as “stem cells”.What is a stem cell?A cell from an adult or an embryo that can grow into an organ or other part of the body Stem cells arise naturally. It can claim, quite rightly, to be successfully competing for new wave business against companies such as C&W, while using its incumbent might to dictate the pace that competitors can offer new services to customers and ensure it still gets a piece of the action, win or lose competitive tenders.But for big public service contracts at least, BT may not remain quite so dominant for long. Richard Seed, an American expert who made similar claims, has also failed to find the limelight for a couple of years. Clonaid also says that it has produced eight pregnancies from 20 implantations in its latest round of cloning – a result that, if true, would have scientists flocking to its laboratories to find out its secrets. For the reality is that producing embryos by cloning adult cells is a hit-and-miss affair – and mostly miss.Professor Hwang’s team collected human eggs from 16 unpaid volunteers who had signed “informed consent” agreements to allow their eggs to be used in research. They collected a total of 242 eggs but only managed to generate 30 cloned embryos, of which only 20 were of good enough quality to attempt stem-cell extraction. The Italian doctor Severino Antinori has been silent for some time after claiming in 2002 he would be first to clone a human.

That includes Panos Zavos, an IVF expert based in the US, who has claimed that he has implanted cloned embryos into women; last week he said one had miscarried. “Cloning research is impossible to do without exploiting women. It should be banned immediately,” said Daniel McConchie, a spokesman for the Centre for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Chicago.And what about the pro-cloners? Clonaid, the company set up by the Swiss-based Raelian sect, which says humans are cloned versions of aliens, chose yesterday to announce on its website that a sixth cloned child had been born in Australia. The company claimed that the first was born in December 2002, but no proof ever emerged.Clonaid is the leader – at least in its claims – of the reproductive cloning group.

That was resisted by too many countries, including the UK, which in 2002 issued its first licences for therapeutic cloning Others had different reasons to dislike the work. He called for an immediate United Nations ban on reproductive human cloning. Earlier attempts to introduce such a ban through the UN failed because the US, urged on by the religious right, attempted to extend the ban to therapeutic uses. The drug, for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, is in a position to become a blockbuster for Celltech as long as the group secures the right commercial partner, Deutsche predicted.The broker said: “We expect this event some time around the first half of this year when Phase III data from the ongoing trials become available.” Deutsche believes that once this deal has been done, the uncertainty which has dogged CDP 870 and Celltech for some time will disappear.

Hence Deutsche upgraded its rating on the stock to “buy” from “hold” and set a 500p price target.Advertising agencies responded to good news from across the Channel. Aegis put on 3p to 109p, Chime Communications added 2.25p to 44p and Incepta rose 8p to 123p as the French advertising industry giants Havas and Publicis both came out with some rather upbeat comments. Publicis reported organic sales growth of 5 per cent for its fourth quarter and said that the global advertising market was continuing to improve. Although figures from Havas were not as strong, the world’s fifth-largest advertising and marketing company reiterated its confidence in an advertising recovery in 2004.Premier Oil lost 22p to 515.5p on the back of a bearish note from Merrill Lynch. The American broker slashed its recommendation to “sell” from “neutral”. Fellow oil explorer Paladin Resources, up 4.25p at 96p, had better luck at the hands of the broker. It was upgraded to “buy” from “neutral” as Merrill argued that the market is underestimating the group’s upcoming drilling programme.Innovation Group ticked 0.25p higher to 38.75p after Robert Bonnier bought a further 4.5 million shares, taking his total holding in the software group to 70 million, or 16 per cent.