19 March 2003
A LOOPHOLE in Britain’s embryo research laws is allowing scientists to create human-animal hybrid cells without the need for a licence.
The restrictive wording of the government embryology watchdog’s legal remit means that it has no power to regulate experiments in which human and animal material are fused to create new cells, The Times has learnt.
The gap in the law means that ethically contentious studies similar to some conducted abroad by Panayiotis Zavos, the maverick scientist who is seeking to clone a human being, could be attempted in Britain without a licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
Although human reproductive cloning is illegal in this country, there would be nothing to stop a researcher working here from adding human DNA to cow eggs — as Dr Zavos has done to test his cloning technique.
The situation has prompted calls for a revision of the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which does not cover such work as it had barely been envisioned when it was framed. “Things like this illustrate that things move on much faster than the regulatory system can often accommodate,” said Ian Gibson, the Labour chairman of the Commons Science and Technology Committee. A spokeswoman for the authority said that the watchdog would also support a review. “When the 1990 Act came into force people didn’t think about how far science would have moved on by now,” she said. “We think there should be clarification for research purposes.”
At least one experiment in which human and animal cells are mixed has already taken place in Britain without a licence. Last year, a team at Cambridge University fused the nuclei of adult human cells with frog eggs, with the goal of producing rejuvenated master cells that can be grown into replacement tissues for treating disease.
The watchdog would also be powerless to regulate a recent Chinese experiment, in which adult human cells were merged with rabbit eggs. The aim was again to produce artificial embryonic stem cells, which can give rise to any type of tissue. The HFEA has no authority over such research because it lies beyond its remit as defined in the 1990 Act.
Experiments that create hybrids require a licence only in cases in which human and animal gametes (sperm or eggs) are fused directly, or in those where the result is an embryo with the potential to develop into a human being.
The hybrid cells produced by this research fall outside these categories as they use gametes from just one of the species, and stand no chance of developing were they to be implanted in the womb.
Suzi Leather, chair of the HFEA, has confirmed in two letters to Calum MacKellar, director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, that the Cambridge study did not require a licence.
Dr MacKellar said: “The Department of Health has got to look at this. It makes no sense at all to me that experiments like this should not be subject to HFEA regulation.”
Dr Gibson said that his committee would be considering the issue as part of its current inquiry into the 1990 Act. “Much of this work may well be ethically justified, but this is the sort of thing that makes many people uncomfortable and it has to be looked at,” he said.
“The techniques and possibilities are moving faster than can be interpreted from the original Act, which was developed specifically for IVF technology.” The stipulation in the 1990 Act that mixing human and animal gametes should require an HFEA licence suggests that Parliament wanted cross-species experiments involving human cells to be regulated, Dr Gibson said. “That would appear to be the intention, but it will obviously demand a revision and adaptation of the legislation to make that clear.” Professor Sir John Gurdon, who led the Cambridge University study, said that he saw no need for a change in the law. “Our work did not produce anything that could vaguely be described as an embryo, we simply turned on genes,” he said. “The aim of this work is to try to grow replacement cells for human tissues, of people’s own genetic constitution, without the need to take them from embryos. I cannot imagine any possible way that anybody would object to this on ethical grounds.”
LABORATORY CREATIONS
Human and frog: a team at Cambridge University fused the nuclei of adult human white blood cells with eggs from Xenopus frogs. The result was “rejuvenated” human cells, more similar to the adaptable master cells found in human embryos. The team hopes eventually to reprogram adult cells to their embryonic state, so that replacement tissues can be grown without the need for therapeutic cloning or the destruction of embryos
Human and rabbit: Shanghai Second Medical University fused cells taken from human foreskins with rabbit eggs from which the nucleus had been removed. This also reprogrammed the human cells so that they became similar to embryonic stem cells. The cells contained both human and rabbit DNA, but were not embryos and could not have developed into foetuses
Human and cow: Panayiotis Zavos, the American scientist seeking to clone a human being, tested his technique by inserting the nuclei of human cells into cow eggs from which the nucleus was removed. He claims that these survived for a fortnight and were “theoretically viable”, although this is heavily disputed by mainstream scientists
Link to original article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1129826,00.html