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.

BBC: Dolly the sheep creator knighted

The citation for his knighthood credits Prof Wilmut with "revolutionising" biology through the cloning technique which underpins the science of stem cell technology.

BBC: Dolly the sheep creator knighted

The best-known of the new knights is Professor Wilmut, who is said to have revolutionised biology by successfully pioneering the cloning technique that underpins the science of stem cell technology.

BBC: Dolly creator heads Scots honours

Instead of generating embryonic stem cell lines via nuclear transfer, Hwang's group produced the stem cells from days-old embryos, a technique that had already been established by James Thomson at University of Wisconsin in 1998.

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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.

BBC: 'Ethical' stem cell crop boosted