Britain Grants First Licenses For Hybrid Embryo Research
Britain’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) gave initial approval to scientists to create human-animal embryos for research. The research will mean the production of human embryos with traces of animal DNA.
Experts in the field say the research is vital for finding potential cures for debilitating and life-threatening diseases.
Two centers will now be able to start work, with conditions, under one-year research licenses — King’s College London and Newcastle University.
The regulators granted their approval after determining that the public was now at ease with the concept of hybrid embryo research.
Researchers hope to create the hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs to create stem cells. The embryos would be destroyed after 14 days.
Dr. Stephen Minger and colleagues at King’s College London want to create hybrids to study diseases known to have genetic causes, such as Alzheimer’s disease, BBC news reports today.
And at Newcastle University, Lyle Armstrong and his team are hoping to use stem cell research to help understand how the stem cells develop into different tissues of the body. “Now that we have the license we can start work as soon as possible,” Dr. Armstrong told BBC news. “We have already done a lot of the work by transferring animal cells into cow eggs so we hope to make rapid progress,” he said.
It is thought this information may help scientists someday grow new tissues in a lab environment.
Since stem cells form the basic building blocks of the human body and have the potential to become any tissue, they are ideal for research. Until now, scientists have relied on human eggs left over from fertility treatments. But these are often in short supply and of inferior quality.
The use of hybrid cells in research raises ethical questions and objections by many critics. Some are disgusted by the idea, saying it is tampering with nature and that there should be no creation of these hybrid embryos.
“The HFEA decision represents a disastrous setback for human dignity in Britain,” said John Smeaton, National Director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), in a BBC news interview. “The deliberate blurring of boundaries between humans and other species is wrong and strikes at the heart of what makes us human,” he added.
HFEA regulators deferred a decision on other types of hybrid embryos, such as "true hybrids" created by the fusion of a human sperm and an animal egg, and "human chimeras", where human cells are injected into animal embryos.
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