LONDON, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Scientist Ian Wilmut who led the team that controversially created Dolly the sheep is abandoning the cloning of human embryos in stem cell research, local press reported Saturday.

The scientist of Edinburgh University developed a cloning technique which involved creating stem cells -- which have the potential to be grown into any cell in the human body -- from human embryos.

Embryonic or stem cells are widely regarded as the most flexible cells in the body and are seen as the body's building blocks.

But the scientist has now embraced a technique developed by Prof. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, Japan, that involves genetically modifying adult cells to make them almost as flexible as stem cells. The research has been conducted on mice.

The scientist believes a rival method developed in Japan holds the key to curing serious medical conditions. The new method creates stem cells from fragments of skin and could remove the need to use human embryos.

Wilmut said his own research team held a meeting at which it was agreed the Japanese method had more potential than the use of embryonic cells.

"The work which was described from Japan of using a technique to change cells from a patient directly into stem cells without making an embryo has got so much more potential," the scientist was quoted by BBC as saying.

"Even though it's only been described for the mouse, when we were considering which option to pursue, whether to clone or whether to copy the work in Japan, we decided to copy the work in Japan," the scientist said.

"I decided a few weeks ago not to pursue nuclear transfer -- the method used to create Dolly the sheep," he said, admitting the new method "was easier to accept socially."

But Wilmut believes that within five years the new technique could provide a better and ethically more acceptable alternative to cloning embryos for medical research.

In 1997 Wilmut's team made headlines around the world when they unveiled Dolly, the first animal to be created from an adult cell.