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Human-rabbit embryos created

Posted on: Friday, 15 August 2003, 06:00 CDT

SCIENTISTS claimed yesterday to have created hybrid human-rabbit embryos by mixing DNA from both species, reigniting the dispute over cloning research.

One cloning expert hailed it as the first human "chimeric" embryo, a reference to the fabulous chimera of Greek mythology, which had a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail.

However, the research, reported by scientists in China, was condemned by pro-life campaigners as "barbaric".

More than 100 of the hybrids are said to have been made by fusing rabbit eggs with human skin cells, with rabbit eggs. The team said it retrieved tissue from two five-year-old boys, two men, and a 60- year-old woman, as a source of skin cells.

They fused these with New Zealand rabbit eggs from which the vast majority of rabbit DNA had been removed.

The resulting embryos were allowed to develop in laboratory dishes for several days before the scientists cannibalised them to extract embryonic stem cells.

These are the body's "master" cells, with the potential to become any kind of tissue. Experts hope they can be used to grow replacement cells for a wide range of diseases, such as Parkinson's and diabetes. Scientists in the US have mixed human cells and cows' eggs in a similar attempt to generate a source of embryonic stem cells, without success.

Earlier this year scientists reported the creation of a hermaphrodite embryo containing male and female cells.

The Chinese research is in the latest edition of the journal, Cell Research.

However, some experts are said to have been frustrated by the lack of detail. The team said the nuclei had been removed from the rabbit eggs and the more than 100 embryos survived to the blastocyst stage, the size of a pinhead.

The vast majority of DNA in the embryos was human. However, the rabbit eggs contributed a small amount of DNA contained in the bodies called mitochondria, which supply energy.

Life, Britain's pro-life charity, reacted "with disgust". Patrick Cusworth, a spokes-man, said: "Such abuses of early life, where a new living and genetically unique individual is deliberately created, abused and destroyed with such contempt, must surely send shivers down the spines of the general public." He said Life was calling for a worldwide ban on all research involving the creation, manipulation and destruction of human life.

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