A lack of restrictions on stem-cell research and large cash injections from the government are making China a world leader in 'therapeutic cloning', in which human embryos are cloned for medical research.

In this article, Charles C. Mann reports that no country is pursuing the field more aggressively than China. And without many of the ethical objections to the research so prevalent in nations such as the United States, Chinese scientists are free to make rapid progress.

Mann interviews key Chinese scientists about their work, and reports on the 'reverse brain drain', in which leading researchers who went abroad to train are being lured back home to work on stem-cell research unhindered.

Link to WIRED Magazine feature article