BRITAIN:British regulators decided yesterday to permit in principle the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos for research into illnesses such as Parkinson's, Motor Neurone Disease and Alzheimer's.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said it had agreed to allow a specific kind of inter-species hybrid, created by injecting human DNA into a hollowed-out animal egg cell.
The resulting "cytoplasmic hybrid" embryo, or "cybrid", would be 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent animal.
The authority is believed to be the first regulator in the world to explicitly approve such human-animal embryos, a spokeswoman for the HFEA said.
Some countries, such as Australia, have banned them.
Two teams of British scientists have applied to the HFEA for permission to create cytoplasmic hybrid embryos using empty cow eggs to overcome a shortage of donated human eggs.
Their applications have been on hold for nearly a year, awaiting the outcome of a public consultation by the authority.
The researchers hope to use the hybrid embryos, which must be destroyed after 14 days, to create stem cells which might provide new medical treatments for degenerative diseases.
Scientists in China, the United States and Canada have already carried out similar work.
"This is not a total green light for cytoplasmic hybrid research, but recognition that this area of research can, with caution and careful scrutiny, be permitted," the HFEA said of yesterday's decision. The authority will now consider the two research applications in the coming months.
Scientists and medical charities welcomed the decision, but opponents said that mixing even a tiny amount of human genetic material with an animal's was unnatural and wrong.
Josephine Quintavalle, of the pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, told BBC radio that reproduction between human and animal broke an "absolute taboo". She said: "The public has been sold a lot of hype about the marvellous cures that are going to come from this research."
HFEA regulators deferred a decision on other types of human-animal embryos, such as "true hybrids", created by the fusion of a human sperm and an animal egg, and "human chimeras", where human cells are injected into animal embryos.