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British Scientists' Plea To Use Hybrid Animal-Human Embryos,article by The Observer's Whitehall editor, Jo Revill, reporting from Manchester, England
2007-08-26 02:59:47

Britain's leading scientists have made a final plea for the right to create the first animal-human embryos for medical research using eggs taken from dead cows.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority will announce its decision next week on whether to give permission to U.K. laboratories to create the hybrid embryos to advance the understanding of genetic diseases.

The issue is controversial because it involves scientists taking an animal egg, removing its genetic material and putting DNA from a human cell into it. This can be used to create lines of stem cells which can then be made part of studies into incurable genetic diseases such as motor neurone disease.

However, it has caused controversy as some campaigners and religious groups argue that it is unethical to mix human and animal cells in this way.
Dr. Stephen Minger has applied for a licence to do work using hybrids, in order to understand more about a range of neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and motor neurone disease.

He said: "I'm cautiously optimistic that the authority will allow us a licence. I hope we have made the case that by doing this research, we can study a number of genetic diseases far more clearly. The cell discoveries we make could then be used to develop therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer's which affect so many people, but for which we now have almost no therapy to offer."

Minger, senior lecturer in stem cell biology at King's College London, believes it makes far more sense to use a hybrid than taking a human embryo, created using a human egg and sperm, because scientists could use eggs taken from ovaries of thousands of cows that are slaughtered every day.

To do this work they would need a large number of embryos to make stem cells, far more than could be achieved by asking women to donate their eggs for research. Stem cells are immature cells that can be engineered to develop into many different kinds of tissue, which is important for medical research.

"When I start talking to people about it, sometime there is a 'yuck factor' and they think it's weird," said Minger. "But once you've explained how it works, and why we are doing it, they do see the point of it, and actually think it's a good idea.

"To me, it seems just very practical to use the cows' eggs, as a by-product of a process [the animals' slaughter] that is already happening." Another scientist, Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, head of genetics at the National Institute of Medical Research in London, said: "I can see absolutely no reason why these sorts of experiments shouldn't proceed. I think the scientists wishing to carry them out have made a very clear case for them."

The government recently shifted its position on animal-human hybrid embryos: having been initially against the concept, it is now proposing to allow partial hybrids, where a complete set of human genes is inserted into an animal's egg cell, for research purposes only, through a new Human Tissue and Embryo Bill aimed at overhauling the laws surrounding fertility treatment.

The move has prompted strong protests from some religious and anti-abortion groups that oppose any such research. Anti-embryo campaigners had said earlier this year it was appalling that the government had, in their view, bowed to pressure from "a random collection of self-interested scientists".

The Catholic Church has made clear its opposition. Bishops told the parliamentary committee scrutinizing a draft bill to allow the research to go ahead, that they opposed the creation of any embryo solely for research - they believe that all life begins at conception. They said they were also anxious to limit the destruction of such life once it had been brought into existence.

In a submission to the committee, they said: "At the very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings, and be treated accordingly."
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INTELLPUKE COMMENTS VERY RIGHTLY:

Quote:

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I see that Dr. Moreau is back at it.

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Cloned Embryo

Human-Animal Embryo Study Wins Approval In U.K.
by Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample, reporting from Manchester, England on 2007-09-03 22:44:25

Mixing cells and eggs to be allowed in search for new medical treatments.

Plans to allow British scientists to create human-animal embryos are expected to be approved Wednesday by the government's fertility regulator. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) published its long-awaited public consultation on the controversial research Monday, revealing that a majority of people were "at ease" with scientists creating the hybrid embryos.

Researchers want to create hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs, in the hope they will be able to extract valuable embryonic stem cells from them. ...The consultation papers were released ahead of the authority's final decision on the matter, which will mark the end of almost a year of intense lobbying by scientists and a fervent campaign by organizations opposed to research involving embryonic stem cells....Using animal eggs will allow researchers to push ahead unhindered by the shortage of human eggs. Under existing laws, the embryos must be destroyed after 14 days when they are no bigger than a pinhead, and cannot be implanted into the womb.

Opponents of the research and some religious groups say the work blurs the distinction between humans and animals, and creates embryos that are destined to be destroyed when stem cells are extracted from them.

Two research groups based at King's College London and Newcastle University have already applied to the HFEA to create animal-human embryos, but their applications have been on hold since November last year amid confusion over whether the authority was legally able to issue licences.

If the authority approves the research, the applications will go forward to a committee, with a decision on both due within three months....

...Most support was expressed for the creation of so-called cytoplasmic hybrid embryos, in which a human cell is inserted into an empty animal egg. Other hybrid embryos, such as those created by fertilising an animal egg with human sperm, or vice versa, were less well supported.

In December, the government sparked a revolt by scientists, patient groups and medical researchers when it published a white paper containing proposals to outlaw almost all research into animal-human embryos. The research has since been backed by Nobel prizewinners, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, and the British government's chief science adviser, Sir David King.

In May, the government withdrew its opposition in a draft fertility bill and now seeks to outlaw only embryos created by mixing sperm and eggs from humans and animals. The bill will be put before parliament before the end of the year....
Bishop Sgreccia: "Monstrous" to Allow Hybrid Embryos...Calls for Mobilization of Scientific Community

LONDON, 06 SEPT. 2007 (Zenit.org).- The decision of British regulators to consider allowing the creation of hybrid embryos for use in medical experiments is "a monstrous act against human dignity," said the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Bishop Elio Sgreccia said this today in response to the Wednesday ruling of Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryo Authority that it would in principle allow the creation of human-animal embryos.

"The British government has given in to the requests of a group of scientists absolutely against morality," Bishop Sgreccia told the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera. "It is necessary that the scientific community mobilizes itself as soon as possible."

In a statement, the British agency announced that it will now consider two specific research proposals to create such embryos -- which scientists call chimeras, after the mythical Greek creature with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail. The agency expects a decision for both cases in November.

The agency added, "This is not a total green light for ... hybrid research, but recognition that this area of research can, with caution and careful scrutiny, be permitted."

Bishop Sgreccia said that Britain's decision marks a turning point: "That frontier, of the crossroads of distinct species, has been overstepped today with the go-ahead of the British government. Up until today this had been banned in the field of biotechnology, and not only by religious associations."

The 79-year-old prelate added that with this ruling "human dignity is compromised, offended."

He said that the British embryo authority stipulated in its decision that the hybrid embryo must be destroyed within 14 days "because there is the awareness that the result they will find is a monstrosity."

"The policy that was approved is repugnant from an emotional point of view, but it is also irrational," Bishop Sgreccia added. He explained that Machiavellian ethics are being used to justify pursuing a noble cause -- the cure of diseases -- "with evil means, applied to scientific research."

He added, "We find ourselves facing an overthrow of ethics. Or better still: With this go-ahead, we put ourselves completely outside of the scope of ethics and humanity."

Stem cell search

Archbishop Peter Smith of Cardiff, Wales, chairman of the Department for Christian Responsibility and Citizenship, said in a statement Wednesday that the decision made by British lawmakers is "of profound significance."

"Human beings," he said, "have a unique nature specifically distinct from the natures of all other animals, and the profound ethical question is: Is it right to transgress that species boundary and attempt to mix human and animal natures in however limited a fashion?"

Scientists want to create hybrid embryos -- which will be made by injecting human DNA into cow or rabbit eggs -- in a bid to extract stem cells. Supporters say it solves the problem of finding enough, good quality human eggs.

Archbishop Smith raised the question as to why "ethically problematic research into hybrid embryos" is needed when adult and cord blood stem cell research has been proven successful.

"The Catholic Church is not against all stem cell research," he said, "and strongly supports such research using adult and cord blood stem cells. This has already led to major clinical benefits, whereas it appears that embryonic stem cell research has yet to produce any."

New Stem Cell Method Could Ease Ethical Concerns
The new discovery is being published online today in Cell, in a paper by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and the Gladstone Institute for Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco, and in Science, in a paper by James Thomson and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin.
By GINA KOLATA
Published: 21 November 2007

Two teams of scientists are reporting today that they turned human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo a feat that could quell the ethical debate troubling the field.

All they had to do, the scientists said, was add four genes. The genes reprogrammed the chromosomes of the skin cells, making the cells into blank slates that should be able to turn into any of the 220 cell types of the human body, be it heart, brain, blood or bone. Until now, the only way to get such human universal cells was to pluck them from a human embryo several days after fertilization, destroying the embryo in the process....

...The two independent teams, from Japan and Wisconsin, note that their method also creates stem cells that genetically match the donor without having to resort to the controversial step of cloning. If stem cells are used to make replacement cells and tissues for patients, it would be invaluable to have genetically matched cells because they would not be rejected by the immune system. Even more important, scientists say, is that genetically matched cells from patients will enable them to study complex diseases, like Alzheimers, in the lab....

...But with the new method, human cloning for stem cell research, like the creation of human embryos to extract stem cells, may be unnecessary....

...For all the hopes invested in it over the past decade, embryonic stem cell research has not yet produced any cures or major therapeutic discoveries. Stem cells are so malleable that they may pose risk of cancer, and the new method of obtaining stem cells includes steps that raise their own safety concerns....

...While both groups used just four genes to reprogram human skin cells, two of the four genes used by the Japanese scientists were different from two of the four used by the American group. All the genes in question, though, act in a similar way they are master regulator genes whose role is to turn other genes on or off.

The reprogrammed cells, the scientists report, appear to behave exactly like human embryonic stem cells.

By any means we test them they are the same as embryonic stem cells, Dr. Thomson says.

He and Dr. Yamanaka caution, though, that they still must confirm that the reprogrammed human skin cells really are the same as stem cells they get from embryos....

...Another caveat is that , so far, scientists use a type of virus, a retrovirus, to insert the genes into the cells chromosomes. Retroviruses slip genes into chromosomes at random, sometimes causing mutations that can make normal cells turn into cancers.

In addition, one of the genes that the Japanese scientists insert actually is a cancer gene.

The cancer risk means that the resulting stem cells would not be suitable for replacement cells or tissues for patients with diseases, like diabetes, in which their own cells die. They would, though, be ideal for the sort of studies that many researchers say are the real promise of this endeavor studying the causes and treatments of complex diseases.

For example, researchers want to make embryonic stem cells from a person with a disease like Alzheimers and turn the stem cells into nerve cells in a petri dish. Then, scientists hope, they may be able to understand what goes awry in Alzheimers patients when their brain cells die and how to prevent or treat the disease.

But even the retrovirus drawback may be temporary, scientists say. Dr. Yamanaka and several other researchers are trying to get the same effect by adding chemicals or using more benign viruses to get the genes into cells. They say they are starting to see success.

It is only a matter of time until retroviruses are not needed, Dr. Melton predicted....


ABER

He even completed the ultimate test to show that the resulting stem cells could become any type of mouse cell. He used them to create new mice, whose every cell came from one of those stem cells. Twenty percent of those mice, though, developed cancer, illustrating the risk of using retroviruses and a cancer gene to make cells for replacement parts....

...Dr. Yamanaka worked with mouse cells and Dr. Thomson worked with human cells from foreskins.

The researchers found more than 1,000 candidate genes. So both groups took educated guesses, trying to whittle down the genes to the few dozen they thought might be the crucial ones and then asking whether any combinations of those genes could turn a skin cell into a stem cell....

...The mouse work went more quickly than Dr. Thomsons work with human cells. As soon as Dr. Yamanaka saw that the mouse experiments succeeded, he began trying the same brute force method in human skin cells that he ordered from a commercial laboratory. Some were face cells from a 36 year old white woman and others were connective tissue cells from joints of a 69 year old white man.

Dr. Yamanaka said he thought it would take a few years to find the right genes and the right conditions to make the human experiments work. Feeling the hot breath of competitors on his neck, he was in his lab every day for 12 to 14 hours a day, he said.

A few months later, he succeeded.

German Calf Loses Two Unneeded Limbs

It's good to come into life with a leg up. But having two extra crippled legs hanging beneath you can actually be more of a pain. For one German cow, though, recent surgery has solved this problem.

Thanks to the generous help of an animal sanctuary, a calf born with six legs has had her two extra limbs removed. Lissy, who came to the world on a farm in the German state of Bavaria with two extra hind legs -- both crippled -- underwent a successful three-hour operation in Vienna Monday.

The calf's two extra limbs are thought to be the result of a twin embryo in its mother's uterus.

If the animal sanctuary of Gut Aiderbichl has its wish, Lissy will now spend the rest of her days grazing on pasture land near the Austrian city of Salzburg. "It's surely not going to be cheap," says the sanctuary's Christian Dutz, "but when we save an animal, we do everything in our power."

Gut Aiderbichl, which counts a number of German and Austrian celebrities among its supporters, claims to have saved over 1,000 old and abused animals.

maw/dpa