Antinori is miracle maker to the rich

The man who could be the first to clone a human is an Italian reproductive pioneer who specialises in making children for rich infertile couples.

Professor Severino Antinori achieved notoriety in 1993 for helping a 59-year-old post-menopausal British woman have children.

He did the same for a 63-year-old Italian woman whose son, Ricardo, died in a motorbike accident at the age of 17.

With help from Professor Antinori and his fertility clinic, the woman had a baby boy in 1994 whom she also called Ricardo.

Professor Antinori heads a chain of fertility clinics and chairs the Italian-US-Israeli private human cloning consortium.

He is aged 55 and has two children. He describes himself as a devout Catholic, though the Vatican has called his work "grotesque" and "evil."

He admires the early pioneers in in vitro fertilisation techniques, including Britons Dr Robert Edwards and Dr Patrick Steptoe, who created the first test tube baby, Louise Brown, in 1978. His cloning project is a collaboration with Professor Panas Zavos formerly of Kentucky University.