U.K. Animal-hybrid Research Fails to Win Funds

Real success is in adult stem-cell research. I dearly hope this is the end for human-animal research.

LONDON (UK Catholic Herald) - Funding bodies have declined to finance the two teams of scientists who received licences from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to carry out stem-cell studies using human-animal hybrid embryos.

The Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have decided they will not fund the work of Prof Stephen Minger of Kings College London and Lyle Armstrong of Newcastle University's Centre for Life.

MPs Evan Harris and Phil Willis both sought assurances that the decision not to fund the research was not motivated by moral concerns.

A spokesman for the MRC said: "Stem-cell science is very important and is funded by the MRC at higher levels than ever before. Studies using admixed embryos hold enormous promise but all applications received by the MRC are subject to competition and rigorous peer-review. This process prevents any moral objection dominating consideration." The MRC insisted that stem-cell research was not under threat.

Josephine Quintavalle of the Comment on Reproductive Ethics group questioned if it was right that the HFEA issued licences for work which could not get funding. "Being able to get funding is surely a proof of how good your research is," she said. "We now have every right to say: what was the value of these research licences?"

Tory MP Ann Widdecombe said: "Real success is in adult stem-cell research. I dearly hope this is the end for human-animal research. Putting aside the moral questions, there has been no evidence for the benefits. It is deeply immoral and disturbing."

Lord Alton of Liverpool, an independent peer, said embryonic stem-cell research had not been able to produce a single medical treatment "whereas pluripotent stem cells have the versatility".

"The issue was always with the versatility," he said. "In this country we have destroyed or experimented on over 200,000 human embryos with no cures forthcoming. I have argued throughout that it was unnecessary but also pointless to use embryos."

He said it was "emotional blackmail" to imply that anyone who opposed the "destruction of human embryos" was "standing in the way of science". Labour MP Jim Dobbin, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, said the decision of the MRC and BBSRC reflected a general belief that embryonic stem-cell research was not as productive a field of research as adult stem-cell research. He also said permission should not have been given prematurely, before the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill had passed through Parliament. Mr Dobbin's said adult stem cells were the way forward and this was the underlying reason for funders' reluctance to back the work.

"I think the success of adult stem- cell research has got something to do with this," he said.

"Adult stem-cell research has been amazingly successful where there's been zilch from embryonic stem cells. I think this is an indication of where the successes actually are."

Mr Dobbin said he absolutely could not accept embryonic or human-animal hybrid research. "It's immoral what they're doing. It's wrong. I think that people are turned off."

He said the reason the Bill succeeded was because of pressure from the scientific community. "The evidence presented in the Commons was not balanced and those who were against were sidelined," he said. "The scientists and the pharmaceutical industry put enormous pressure on the Government." Britain is the only country in the world where animal-human hybrid embryos can be created for destructive research.

In 2005 Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, announced that he wanted to make Britain the biotechnological capital of the world and authorised the investment of more than Ł100 million in embryonic stem-cell research. But not a single therapy has been developed from research on embryos while work undertaken in other countries on adult stem cells has produced nearly 80 therapies with a further 350 clinical trials under way. Last year Claudio Castillo became the first person to receive a whole transplant organ grown from her own stem cells to repair her windpipe.

Archbishop Peter Smith of Cardiff said the bishops were "opposed to research using hybrid embryos but strongly support new research reprogramming adult cells to become stem cells and life saving therapies that already exist using adult stem cells".

He said: "Adult stem cells hold great potential to relieve suffering and cure diseases. We were encouraged by recent news of a woman in Spain whose trachea was repaired using adult stem cells. It is early days for adult stem- cell research but we strongly support scientific research that is both effective and ethical."

Last October Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University, left Britain for the University of Lyon, France, because he felt unable to attract funding for his work on adult stem cells.

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