- FDA Rules for Cigarettes Are a Victory for Public Health, for Science (and for the Earth’s Climate?)
- Legislation Introduced to Codify Stem Cell Rules
- Commissioner Enhances FDA’s Commitment to Personalized Medicine
- Perfecting Policy on Stem Cells
- NIH and FDA Aim to Retool Regulatory Science
- DOE Leads Federal Funding for a Regional Innovation Cluster
- Certainty on the Science of Climate Change
- They’re Not Perfect Cells, But They’re Model Cells
- Genomic Medicine on the March
- President’s Budget Aims to Recharge Regional Innovation
- Event: The Science of Climate Change
- Progress in Bioethics
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
British Scientists Announce First Animal-Human Hybrid Embryos
Scientists at Newcastle University in the UK have announced the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos intended to provide stem cells for research. From the Guardian:
Britain’s first human-animal hybrid embryos have been created, forming a crucial first step, scientists believe, towards a supply of stem cells that could be used to investigate debilitating and so far untreatable conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease.
Lyle Armstrong, who led the work, gained permission in January from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to create the embryos, known as “cytoplasmic hybrids”.
His team at Newcastle University produced the embryos by inserting human DNA from a skin cell into a hollowed-out cow egg. An electric shock then induced the hybrid embryo to grow. The embryo, 99.9% human and 0.1% other animal, grew for three days, until it had 32 cells.
Eventually, scientists hope to grow such embryos for six days, and then extract stem cells from them. The researchers insisted the embryos would never be implanted into a woman and that the only reason they used cow eggs was due to the scarcity of human eggs.
The results are preliminary, and the research has not yet been submitted for peer review. But the announcement comes just a month before the House of Commons is set to debate legislation that would specifically allow creation of such hybrids for biomedical research, reports the BBC.
Creation of hybrid, or “chimeric,” organisms has also raised controversy in the United States. Science Progress assessed the British debate over the technology last year, along with research involving hybrid mice used by U.S. scientists in drug development and immune system research. The intersection of embryonic stem cell and hybrid research could renew bioethical debates on this side of the pond, as Jonathan Moreno pointed out after the November announcement of induced pluripotent stem cells.
Comments on this article
