UK Officials Approve Human-Animal Stem Cell Experiments

Regulators in the U.K. approved today combining animal eggs with human DNA to create embryos from which they can exract stem cells.

The procedure is technically a form of cloning that would involve removing the nucleus from the animal (a cow or rabbit) egg cells, and replacing it with human DNA. Scientists would then allow the cells to divide for two weeks or so into about 200 cells, then destroy the entity to extract stem cells. It's a more efficient way to study stem cells, since using human eggs are limited, and getting them is laborious and sometimes dangerous for women. It's an ethical issue we've covered at Wired News and on our now-defunct blog Bodyhack.

This paragraph from the AP story is a bit misleading:

However, the research has raised ethical worries. The involvement of animals has caused concern among the public, while right-to-life advocates fear it could lead ultimately to genetically modified babies
- despite the fact that the studies being considered would only allow development of eggs for a few days.

"Genetically modified babies" isn't exactly right. Any baby that developed from an animal egg combined with human cells would actually be a chimera. Not that any scientists are suggesting that would or should happen.

The research presents a funny dilemma. Granted at first blush it comes with a fairly high yuck factor, but one could argue that the research would not involve destroying a human embryo, so those who protest cloning and stem cell research for religious or ethical reasons should welcome this as an alternative. But they sure don't.

Meanwhile, scientists in the United States have been performing chimera reserach for years (but not using federal funding), partly because we don't have a body specifically governing reproduction in the United States, like the U.K.'s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

Read more here, here and here.

Wired Science found this news so exciting that we posted on it twice!