A face only a mother could love?

One of the world’s leading geneticists has announced that he is to bring the Neanderthal man back to life, and all he needs is one female willing to be its birth mother.

The primitive Neanderthal man has been extinct for 33,000 years, but Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School believes that he can change all that with the use of genetic code.

Professor Church’s in-depth analysis of Neanderthal genetic code using bone samples from bones is detailed enough that he now believes he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA. However, he needs the assistance of a woman willing to act as a surrogate to the ‘child’.

“Now I need an adventurous female human. It depends on a hell of a lot of things, but I think it can be done,” The Daily Mail reported the scientist as saying.

If a volunteer can be found, Professor Church would start the process by artificially creating Neanderthal DNA based around the genetic codes that have been discovered in fossil remains. This DNA would then be put into stem cells and injected into cells from a human embryo.

The ‘neo-Neanderthal’ embryo would then be implanted into a surrogate mother’s womb.

“They could even be more intelligent than us,” said Professor Church, who believes that the plans could benefit humankind.

“When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet, it’s conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial,” he went on to say.

However, Philippa Taylor of the Christian Medical Fellowship said, “It is hard to know where to begin with the ethical and safety concerns.”