On 19 December 2000, British members of Parliament (MPs) voted to relax the 1990 Human Fertilization and Embryology Act so as to allow therapeutic cloning. If ratified by the House of Lords, the new law will allow UK researchers to apply for a license from the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA; London) to use nuclear transfer technology to create human embryos specifically for research on embryonic stem cells (Nat. Biotechnol. 18, 1034, 2000). This is allowed in the United States if carried out with private funds, but the United Kingdom is the first country in Europe to allow such research—public or private. “We are confident that the Human Embryology and Fertilization Act now provides excellent and balanced regulation in this important area of research where the UK is at the forefront of international work,” says Crispin Kirkman, chief executive of the British BioIndustry Association (BIA; London).