Dr Keisuke Kaji, a stem cell researcher at the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Edinburgh said the technique was a "great advance" in cell reprogramming technology.

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The new manufacturing technique has been under development for two years and is still in a research facility, hidden among the grubby buildings of Pirelli's sprawling Bicocca plant on the outskirts of Milan.

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Dr Bilham and Vinod Gaur, from the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation in Bangalore, writing late last year in Current Science, said that until recently Indian seismological research has neglected a technique known as geodesy, which measures the strains accumulating in, and distorting the surfaces of, plates.

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These results suggest the technique could have future research possibilities in developing lab-grown organs.

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Last month, Prof Wilmut announced that he was abandoning the cloning of human embryos in stem cell research in favour of a new technique developed in Japan.

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Although the first such images were published only last year, by research groups in America and Europe, attempts are already being made to commercialise the technique.

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The new study's lead researcher Dr Tomas Cizmar, research fellow in the School of Medicine at the University of St Andrews, said while the technique is very new, it had huge potential.

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