Australian scientists from Sydney IVF, a fertility firm, got a license Wednesday to produce cloned human embryos.

It is Australia's and the world's first license to obtain stem cells from cloned human embryos. It is expected to generate controversy in medical research over ethical issues.

Tomas Stojanov, Sydney IVF's director of research and development, said the firm has skills, technology and access to 7,200 human eggs that may lead it to succeed in stem cell research. The aim of the company is to gain knowledge about how crippling conditions like muscular dystrophy and Huntington's diseases develop and how to treat these ailments.

The process involves placing DNA from a patient's cell into an empty egg to produce days-old cloned embryo, from which embryonic stem cells are gathered.

The grant of the license was the result of the lifting in December 2006 of a national ban on therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer research. Incumbent Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was an opposition MP at that time, opposed the lifting of the ban.

David van Gend, director of the Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research, criticized the grant of the license. Gend said, quoted by the Canberra Times, "It is unspeakable that we should continue this project of creating living human embryos with the sole purpose of destroying them when the compelling justification for such experiments has gone."

Stojanov replied that Sydney IVF adheres to the strictest ethical global standards for cloning research. He pointed out the intent of their research was not to create human life. "We are not creating an embryo for reproductive purposes," Stojanov said, quoted by Canberra Times.

The firm's license permits Sydney IVF to use its 7,200 eggs within three years to produce cloned embryos. The research company has three types of cells - embryonic stem cells, cumulus cells attached to the collected eggs and skin cells.

Sydney IVF wants to help parents avoid passing on genetic ailments to their children through the pre-implantation genetic diagnosis of IVF embryos, according to Robert Jansen, managing director for Sydney IVF.