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17 May 2004
The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SCHB) indicated, today, that it wants UK regulations to be tightened up so that human chromosomal sets which are inserted into animal eggs are considered as human sperm.
This follows the case in which Cambridge University academics injected about 100 adult human cell nuclei into the nucleus of Xenopus frog eggs and left them to develop during 4 or more days of incubation. The experiment was indeed similar to one in which Australian researchers , showed that a complete set of chromosomes from an adult mouse cell introduced into an egg could, in certain circumstances, ‘fertilise’ this egg and thereby create a living embryo.
However, in two private letters sent to the SCHB, Ms. Suzi Leather stated, concerning the Cambridge research, that "As this work involves the use of adult human cells, and the researchers did not use human gametes, it does not breach Section 4(1) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, as this provides that - no person shall mix gametes with the live gametes of any animal, except in pursuance of a licence", adding "The authority considers that, under the 1990 Act, a gamete is a reproductive cell which has a haploid set of chromosomes and which has the potential to fuse with another of opposite sex to form a zygote. I am advised that it cannot be read as extending to all types of cells or chromosomal sets that are not derived from the reproductive organs."
But Dr. Calum MacKellar, Director of Research of the SCHB, indicated in this respect that "I cannot understand why only a restrictive and traditional definition of gametes is currently being considered by the HFEA" adding that "if these chromosomal sets can ‘fertilise’ eggs then they should certainly be considered in a similar way to sperm."
With respect to the entities being formed by the Cambridge academics, Ms. Suzi Leather told the SCHB that "there is not evidence that the research involving Xenopus oocytes involves the creation of an organism that could be described as a live human embryo." In reply, Dr MacKellar indicated that "if chromosomal sets, inserted into eggs, were considered in law as having the same capacity as sperm, then it would be difficult to see how the entities created by the Cambridge researchers would not be regarded as embryos under the present definition of an embryo in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act."
1 Byrne, J. A., Simonsson, S., Western, P. S. & Gurdon, J. B., Nuclei of adult mammalian somatic cells are directly reprogrammed to oct-4 stem cells gene expression by amphibian oocytes. Current Biology, 13, 1206 - 1213, (2003) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=npg&cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12867031&dopt=Abstract
2 Highfield, R. How to make babies without a man, The Telegraph - 10 July 2001, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/07/10/wfert10.xml
3 Lacham-Kaplan, O., Daniels, R. & Trounson, A. Reprod. Biomed. Online 3, 205-211 (2001), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=npg&cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12513856&dopt=Abstract