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English Scientists Ask Permission to Create Human/Cow Clones

By Hilary White

LONDON, November 7, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A group of researchers at Kings College London and the North East England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI) are applying to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) for permission to attempt to create hybrid embryos made from cow and human genetic material.

HFEA, one of the most permissive national regulatory agencies in the world, said it has not yet received the application but has been asked before for permission to create human/animal hybrids. In January this year, Professor Ian Wilmut, the cloning researcher who created Dolly the cloned sheep, applied to create clones from human and rabbit tissue.

Dr Stephen Minger, director of the Stem Cell Biology Laboratory at Kings College told media that he was “optimistic” that the HFEA would grant permission for the research to go forward. The proposal is intended as a means of overcoming the shortage of human ova, considered by many to be a serious obstacle for large-scale cloning experiments.

The researchers propose to take a cow ovum, removing the nucleus and replacing it with the nucleus a human somatic cell such as a skin cell. The clone thus created would be a combination of human and cow DNA. Any cloned hybrids surviving would be “destroyed” after 14 days with stem cells having been extracted after six days of development.

The work is part of an attempt to create disease-specific human embryonic stem cell lines for treatment of particular diseases, a project looked upon as the ‘holy grail’ of stem cell researchers. Disease-specific cells would, theoretically, be applied to areas of the brain damaged by neurodegenerative disorders. Thus far, however, successful treatments for diseases using stem cells have been almost entirely from adult, not embryonic stem cells. 

In August this year, the Edinburgh-based Scottish Council on Human Bioethics called for a halt to hybrid experiments saying that most people in the UK do not know it is going on and find it “deeply offensive.”  The Council is also calling on government not to use animal eggs to create cloned animal-human embryos.

Council director Dr. Calum MacKellar said, “Parliament should follow France and Germany and prohibit the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos.”

The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics issued a report this summer, published in the journal, Human Reproduction and Genetic Ethics, in anticipation of new draft legislation planned by Britain’s Department of Health, calling for a halt to animal hybrid experimentation.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
UK Cloning Doctor Wants to Create Human/Rabbit Hybrid Clones
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jan/06011306.html

Animal-Human Hybrid Embryos a Reality
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06081001.html

Report by Scottish Council on Human Bioethics
Embryonic, Fetal and Post-natal Animal-Human Mixtures: An Ethical Discussion
http://www.schb.org.uk/publications/report%20-%20animal-huma...

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