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BIA backs up pro-hybrid embryos report

By Emilie Reymond, 10-Apr-2007

Related topics: Regulatory & Safety

The BioIndustry Association (BIA) said it fully supports a UK Parliamentary Committee report which endorses the creation of animal-human embryonic hybrids in drug research.

The report was published last week by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee in response to the publication of a government white paper to ban the creation of human-animal chimera or hybrid embryos for research purposes.

 

 

 

The Committee's inquiry found that the government proposals to ban the use of hybrid embryos are unacceptable and potentially harmful to UK science.

 

 

 

The BIA, the biotech industry's trade body, followed the steps of the Committee saying it believes that using such embryos in research could be "a powerful tool that will help scientists to learn more about the differences between diseased and normal cells".

 

 

 

"It is essential that this research is permitted so that many thousands of patients can benefit from new therapies in the future," said Aisling Burnand, chief executive of the BIA.

 

 

 

"It is important to safeguard the UK's position as a world leading environment for cutting-edge research in bioscience as recognised in the Committee's report."

 

 

In the context of the Committee's report, the term 'hybrid' is used to describe the creation of an embryo after implanting human DNA into an enucleated animal ovum.

 

 

 

According to the BIA, research is stifled by a shortage of human eggs available for research and the creation of hybrid embryos could be a solution to tackle this scarcity.

 

 

 

What is more, it argues, hybrid embryos could be used to develop the techniques required for the production of stem cells, which could be the source of treatments for diseases such as muscular dystrophy, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease.

 

 

 

Sparking the debate was a report from the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) published earlier this year and calling for a public consultation into the use of animal eggs to create hybrid or chimeric human embryos for research, which resulted in the Committee's inquiry.

 

 

 

 

 

However, the creation of these chimeras is creating exciting avenues of research as well as controversy.

 

 

 

A recent ethics report raised concerns about using such hybrids in drug testing especially due to the moral implications of creating animal-human mixtures, claiming that the creation of animals with certain kinds of human characteristics or with human brain and reproductive cells would be "offensive and unnatural".

 

 

 

The study released by the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SCHB) listed a series of 15 recommendations designed to allay concerns over whether or not hybrid embryos would be used for procedures that are problematic or risky, including one that states that the creation of an embryo containing cells made up of both human and animal chromosomes should be prohibited.

 

 

 

The potential power of embryonic and foetal inter-species mixtures became clear about a decade ago in a series of dramatic experiments on chickens and quails. The resulting offered astonishing proof that complex behaviours could be transferred across species.

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