The UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has given two UK research projects one year licences to create embryos made of human DNA and animal eggs.
The two licenses have been granted to King’s College London and Newcastle University.
The researchers want to make stem cells so they can investigate a range of human diseases. However, stem cells from embryos created from human eggs left over from fertility treatments are in short supply and not always of sufficient quality for stem cell harvesting, so the next best thing is to make them from what is called a “human-animal cytoplasmic hybrid embryo”.
These embryos are made by inserting human DNA into an animal egg, usually that of a cow, that has been stripped of its nucleus, and then growing it for up to 14 days, during which time stem cells can be harvested. The embryos are destroyed afterwards.
Stem cells are “master cells”, capable of reproducing into any cell of the body, which makes them ideal starting points for creating any kind of tissue in the lab to monitor the progress of induced diseases, or genetic changes, for example.
Stem cells are in great demand by scientists investigating brain and nervous system diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, two of the diseases that one of the HFEA licensees, Dr Stephen Minger and his team at King’s, will be investigating, while the other licensee, Dr Lyle Armstrong and colleagues at Newcastle, will be using hybrid embryos to investigate how stem cells work.
The two applications were considered by members of the HFEA Licence Committee at two meetings: one in November last year and one on the 9th of January this year.
According to an HFEA statement, the Committee “determined that the two applications satisfied all the requirements of the law”. The licences, which last for one year, come with a series of detailed conditions attached.
Any other research projects seeking to do similar work must make separate applications of their own, which will considered on a case by case basis, said the HFEA.
After receiving the applications in 2006, the HFEA carried out a lengthy investigation, including a public consultation that found the public was generally in favour of allowing animal-human embryos for research.
Many scientists have welcomed the move by the HFEA, which preempts a bill currently going through parliament in favour of creating human animal embryos for research. The HFEA was able to use existing law to grant the licences, it said. (This is probably why it will only look at cases on an individual basis.)
Although the public consultation exercise carried out by the HFEA found that most people in the UK appear to be in favour of human animal embryos for research, not everyone is happy about it. Some groups, as reported by the Times, pointed to new technologies, as reported in recent studies like the one that found human skin cells can be reprogrammed to create pluripotent cells that behave like stem cells.
The HFEA Committee rejected this suggestion, saying that while they agreed the new technologies were “promising”, they did not remove:
“The need for the basic research into differentiation of pluripotential embryonic stem cells as proposed in this application.”
Other groups have expressed outrage, for example, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC). A spokesman for the SPUC told the BBC that the HFEA decision constitutes a “disastrous setback for human dignity in Britain”.
The HFEA is a statutory body, set up in 1991 under the scope of the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. Its job is to license and monitor UK research centres, clinics and hospitals, that carry out research and treatments to do with IVF (in vitro fertilization), DI (donor insemination), and research involving human embryos. They also regulate the storage of human eggs, sperm and embryos.
Some of the conditions of the licences include regulation by ethics committees, attending special training from the HFEA, and having tight procedures around informed consent for use of human DNA in this way.
Click here for HFEA website and notes of the committee meetings.
Sources: BBC News, Times Online, Guardian, HFEA website.
Written by: Catharine Paddock