My geneticist colleagues have gone too far this time....

[Drbio]

Stem cell experts seek rabbit-human embryo

· Hybrid will hasten research, say scientists
· Grey area exposed in regulation procedures

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday January 13, 2006
The Guardian


British scientists are seeking permission to create hybrid embryos in the lab by fusing human cells with rabbit eggs. If granted consent, the team will use the embryos to produce stem cells that carry genetic defects, in the hope that studying them will help understand the complex mechanisms behind incurable human diseases.
The proposal drew strong criticism from opponents to embryo research who yesterday challenged the ethics of the research and branded the work repugnant.

Plans for the experiments have been put forward by Professor Chris Shaw, a neurologist and expert in motor neurone disease at King's College London, and Professor Ian Wilmut, the Edinburgh University-based creator of Dolly the sheep, as a way of overcoming the shortage of fresh human eggs available for research.

"The fertility of rabbits is legendary," said Prof Shaw. "The most important thing is that with animal eggs, we have a much better chance of generating stem cells and if we wait for human eggs, it's going to be maybe a decade before we can do this. If we can use animal eggs, we could maybe have stem cells within one or two years," he added.

Scientists use eggs in research to create cloned embryos, from which they harvest stem cells. By producing stem cells that carry the genetic defects of diseases, researchers believe they will be able to unravel how a cell's molecular machinery goes wrong, potentially leading to new cures for disease. But the research is progressing slowly, hampered by a severe shortage of "spare" eggs donated by couples undergoing fertility treatment.

Prof Shaw's team will need a licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority before they are allowed to pursue the research. "As with all research involving human embryos, the research team would have to show that the research is both necessary and desirable, and that any embryo created could not be allowed to develop for longer than 14 days or be implanted in a woman," said Dr Chris O'Toole, head of research regulation at the HFEA.

If the researchers are granted consent, they will not be the first to fuse human cells with rabbit eggs. In 2003, Huizhen Sheng at Shanghai Second Medical University published work in which she claimed to have extracted stem cells from hybrid embryos made from rabbit eggs.

To make a hybrid embryo, a human skin cell would be taken from a person with motor neurone disease and injected into a hollowed-out rabbit egg. The resulting embryo would contain only a tiny amount of rabbit DNA in a microscopic structure that generates energy in the cell. The rest of the DNA would be human. If the experiment is successful, within a week, the egg will have divided to form a tiny ball of a 200 or so cells, from which stem cells could be extracted.

The embryos could not legally be implanted into a woman's womb and the stem cells would not be safe to implant because they would be rejected by the immune system. "They will never grow beyond the 200 cell stage and they will have no human features," said Prof Shaw.

The proposal exposes a grey area in British regulation, however, as officials at the HFEA admitted it was questionable whether the resulting embryo was human. "That's the question and it's for the government, the HFEA and lawyers to work out," said Prof Shaw.

Josephine Quintavalle of the lobby group Comment on Reproductive Ethics said: "There is a lot of innate wisdom in the yuk factor, or repugnance as it is also known. My question is: what will they actually create? It is simplistic or deliberately deceptive to say they are simply making stem cells. In order to obtain stem cells they surely have to go through the blastocyst stage; they have to create a 'something' from which to derive the new cells. What is this something? It must be human to be of any use to researchers."

Professor Sir John Gurdon, a Cambridge University researcher, already uses similar technology to investigate how eggs appear to be capable of converting adult cells into stem cells that can potentially grow into any tissue in the body. His experiments have so far focused on injecting DNA from human cells into frog eggs.

He said: "I don't see there's any ethical problem with what they are proposing. I don't see it as a human embryo, but it all comes back to the question of when you think life begins. Scientifically, though, I'm not persuaded it will work. If you put cells from one species into the egg of another, the egg may divide, but you could get a lot of genetic abnormality that won't lead to good quality stem cells."

[Drbio]

This is very disturbing. Let me say that I disagree with President Bush on stem cell research as it is a very promising field which has very real expectations of curing a large number of diseases and maladies, but the mixing of human and non-human genetic material has me very concerned. I really hate to see well educated scientists not see the ethical issue involved, especially when they have the opportunity in Britian to study stem cells. Very worrisome stuff here.

[Usually Lurkin]

Don't these people watch movies? Stuff like this never turns out well.

[Mavdog]

hopefully someone who has authority over these scientists will be able to stop this insane proposal.

[Usually Lurkin]

Doc, I'm curious as to how you can be for embryonic stem cell research but against mutant stem cell research.

[aexchange]

wow, mavdog and doc agreeing on something?

do my eyes decieve me?

[Hitman]

Half Man, Half Rabbit.

That dude will be a serious baller.

I hope Donnie is keeping an eye on this.

[Drbio]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

Doc, I'm curious as to how you can be for embryonic stem cell research but against mutant stem cell research.

You can collect embyronic stem cell blood from the cord blood. The potenital benefits are mind boggling. Done ethically, I am 100% in favor of this line of research. I am 100% against crap like a mutant human/rabbit hybrid. It violates all scientific ethics and opens the door for sickening research that would make your stomach turn.

[Drbio]

AEx- it happens.....rarely.


Hitman- good one. You know he is....Nellie's are always about the schemes....

[Usually Lurkin]

You can collect embyronic stem cell blood from the cord blood.

can you point me towards a "for dummies" web page?

[Usually Lurkin]

-oops. I mean for definitions, not a how-to web page.

But if you've got any links for how-to's on combining humans and animals, send me those, too. My vacuum broke and I thought I'd try to combine Steve Nash and an elephant for a replacement.

. . .

cause he is the suck, you know.

[Drbio]

I really don't know of a page that simplifies it. I would google one. To fully understand the mechanisms, it takes some fairly timely study.

[MFFL]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

hopefully someone who has authority over these scientists will be able to stop this insane proposal.

Some country somewhere will do the research. Not all countries care about the possible negative consequences.

[Drbio]

unfortunately MFFL is correct. Money talks louder than ethics in numerous countries.

[XERXES]

Could this explain the origin of the Easter Bunny?!

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by XERXES

Could this explain the origin of the Easter Bunny?!

or the killer bunny from monty python's holy grail?