Hybrid embryo debate begins

Apr 26 2007 By The Journal

Scientists in the North are hopeful their plans to create a hybrid human-rabbit embryo will move one step closer to reality as consultation begins today.

The Centre for Life in Newcastle wants to create embryos that are 99.9% human and 0.1% animal by fusing animal eggs taken with human cells to ease the shortage of fresh human eggs for research.

Newcastle University researcher Dr Lyle Armstrong and his team hope to use the embryos to extract stem cells and grow tissue, such as muscle or liver, which can be used to treat degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's.

A debate on the ethics of hybrid animal-human embryos was launched yesterday by Britain's fertility regulator.

The public consultation will be followed in September by a Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority policy decision on whether or not to allow such research.

The HFEA has faced criticism for holding up the experiments.