After a series of u-turns and months of intense pressure
from scientists, the UK
government's regulator for embryo research, the HFEA, has finally allowed researchers
to create and use human-animal hybrid embryos.
The two research teams have been waiting for over a year to
get the green light - they applied November 2006 for a licence to derive stem
cells from human embryos, created from animal eggs instead of human eggs.
Stem cell research has become a high-profile and contentious
area of science over the past few years but this is the first time that
scientists in the UK
have the permission to create embryos in a research project which contain both
human and animal DNA.
While the HFEA's decision was described as
"disastrous" by campaigners, some more extreme compared embryo
experimentation to vivisection. And a report last week quoted a Northern Irish
lord who slammed the technique calling it "Frankenstein science".
Hybrid embryos are created by transferring human DNA into animal
eggs from animals such as cows or rabbits. The resulting embryos are more than
99 per cent human. Those embryos are only created for research purposes and have to be
destroyed after 14 days – it's actually a criminal offence to transfer such
embryos to a woman. Scientists hope the process will avoid the ethical dilemmas
conducting research using human embryos.
But the issue remains highly controversial, as the idea of mixing
human and animal DNA raises itself a number of social and ethical
questions - such as whether these types of research should be permitted at
all, and if they were where the boundaries should lie.
So I guess I belong to the group of people who are thrilled by the
progress British science is making but can't help but wonder if all these
protester groups outside Parliament are just trying to warn us...