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LONDON: British scientists have created part-human,
part-animal hybrid embryos for the first time in the country,
according to a report by BBC on Tuesday.
The embryos created by scientists
at Newcastle University survived for up to three days. They were
created by injecting DNA derived from human skin cells into eggs
taken from cow ovaries which have had virtually all their genetic
material removed, the report said.
The scientists under the
leadership of Professor John Burn from the Newcastle University said
they are using cow ovaries because human eggs from donors are a
precious resource and in short supply.
“This is licensed work which
has been carefully evaluated. This is a process in a dish, and we
are dealing with a clump of cells, which would never go on to
develop. It’s a laboratory process and these embryos would never
be implanted into anyone,” said Burn.
“We now have preliminary data
which looks promising but this is very much a work in progress and
the next step is to get the embryos to survive to around six days
when we can hopefully derive stem cells from them,” Burn said.
The hybrid embryos are purely for
research and would never be allowed to develop beyond 14 days by law
when they are still smaller than a pinhead.
The research in Newcastle was
approved by Britain’s fertility regulator, Human Fertilization and
Embryology Authority.
It acted ahead of the passing of
new legislation, which will specifically allow the creation of
hybrid embryos so as not to hold back research.
The bill setting out the new
legislation is not due to be debated in the House of Commons until
next month.
Scientists want to extract stem
cells, the body’s master cells, from the embryos, in order to
increase understanding of a whole range of diseases from diabetes to
stroke and ultimately to produce treatments.
--Xinhua
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