Scientists Bid to Create Human-Cow Embryos

[57classic]

mycattle.com/health/dsp_health_article.cfm?storyid=19293

Scientists in Britain have asked for permission to create “hybrid” embryos from animal eggs and human cells to pursue medical research into some of the most intractable diseases.

The aim is to create a cloned embryo by fusing a nucleus from a human skin cell with a cow’s egg that has had its own cell nucleus removed.

Genetically, the embryo would be 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent cow which would, in effect, make it a human embryo and therefore subject to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. Two teams of researchers at Newcastle University and King’s College London submitted a joint application yesterday for a research licence to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the body which polices the Act. Scientists want to clone animal-human hybrids because of a shortage of human eggs for stem-cell research. They intend to extract embryonic stem cells from the hybrid embryos, which will not be allowed to develop beyond 14 days.

 

[Rosalinda]

If its a human being at fourteen days it was a human being on day one too at the single cell zygote stage of development. The ontological nature of human embryos remains the same as a baby, a child, a teenager or an adult. We are all created in the image of God. Life is a continuum. We are all on a continuum. We were all once embryos. Only these embryos have been denied not only the shelter and warmth of a mother’s womb but will be denied the biological right to be conceived within a human mother’s oocyte. This is tiny human life denied “room at the inn”. This is experimentation on human individuals who have not consented to this procedure nor will they benefit themselves as they will only be created to die.

It doesn’t matter how much basic science will be learned with this ungodly tinkering. This trespasses a new frontier into a wilderness of “survival of the fittest”. Didn’t we promise our children “never again”? Satan offers the same lies repackaged in pretty, fresh gift wrap and we are fooled every time. Why? We have forgotten our first love. We have become enamored with ourselves. This proposition is a violent attack on the dignity of all mankind because it reduces us to agricultural commodities to be bred like cow stock.

 

[Ma.Eugenia]

I fear where all these experimentations are leading to.

I think these scientist have opened a floodgate where the very fabric of our humanity is jeopardized.

I suppose this is one of the consequence when human life is not held sacred anymore.

 

[johnnycatholic]

Remember the Island of Dr. Moreau? I guess some people just shouldn’t watch movies.

 

[Vanny]

I fear where all these experimentations are leading to.

I think these scientist have opened a floodgate where the very fabric of our humanity is jeopardized.

I suppose this is one of the consequence when human life is not held sacred anymore.

Exactly- i fear it too!. It all starts with separating sex and procreation- sex without babies, babies without sex,

 

[Ma.Eugenia]

Exactly- i fear it too!. It all starts with separating sex and procreation- sex without babies, babies without sex,

Yes, you’re right.

I hope we will not have half-cow-half human, half-dog-half-human beings walking our streets in a few decades.

These experiments are dangerous.

 

[Holly3278]

Wow this is scary. I can’t believe they’d want to do this but nothing really amazes me that much anymore. This just makes me want to cry.

 

[57classic]

Waaaaaaay back when I was a kid, I snuck a sci-fi comic book into the house that had a mad-scientist who kidnaped children to makeclones on a hidden island kinda plot. Now I know why Mom was so upset when she found it. I really thought she’d lost her mind when she said it was coming.
It makes me very afraid for my children & grandchildren…

 

[Rosalinda]

British stem cell scientists are fuming because their government will probably ban experiments with hybrid embryos which combine human and animal genetic material. They have issued dire warnings that hundreds of thousands of patients with diseases of the nervous system could miss out on potentially life-saving treatment. “To shut that down is a real affront to patients who are desperate for therapy,” says Professor Chris Shaw, of King’s College London. The government will make a decision this week.
The Blair government, which has generally taken the permissive option in bioethical matters, seems to be responding to a collective “yuk” from the public. A Department of Health consultation on changes to the UK’s fertility legislation received 535 responses, of which 340 focused on hybrid embryos, even though only one of 30 questions dealt with this topic. About 80% were opposed.

australasianbioethics.org/Newsletters/currentbioedge.html#we

telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/05/nembryo05.xml

 

[apricot_yogurt]

Perhaps it might help any half human half cow people who get ill, so we shouldn’t knock it.

Who are they asking permission from? Not God, that’s for sure.

 

[mmm1]

They will convince people that even this is a good thing because it will bring about so many cures. Human- cow embryos, artificial wombs, human embryos for sale in San Antonio & cloned human embryos surviving for several days in Mass… Nothing surprises me anymore.

 

[Rosalinda]

Interesting article at LifeIssues.net entitled, “An Overview of Chimeras and Hybrids” by Tara Seyfer. This author helps to sort out the difference between the two. Unfortunately, it looks like a few countries, including the U.S., are already creating these pseudo hybrids.

The biotech company Advanced Cell Technology inserted human somatic cells into enucleated cow oocytes to produce human stem cells.46 Chinese researchers did the same, using rabbit oocytes.47 Renegade “researcher” Panayiotis Zavos inserted human granulosa cells into enucleated cow oocytes to “practice” his human cloning techniques.48 Technically, the products of these types of experiments cannot seem to be considered either true chimeras or true hybrids. The products are not chimeras, because they are not a variegated mix of different species of cells or organs within one individual, and they are not true hybrids, because the nuclear DNA does not combine between the two species (because the oocytes have been enucleated prior to insertion of the somatic nuclear DNA). Nonetheless, perhaps they could be considered “quasi-hybrid” experimental entities, as there are two species of DNA present (nuclear DNA from one species and mitochondrial DNA from the other species’ oocytes) in each cell of the resultant embryos, and there could be some slight interaction between the two DNAs. Although mitochondrial DNA generally keeps separate and distinct from nuclear DNA in cells, and does not combine with the nuclear DNA, there is likely to be some cross-talk interaction between the two.49 .

This article is well documented with extensive footnotes.
lifeissues.net/writers/sey/sey_03overview1.html

 

[Rosalinda]

Britain’s embryology regulator said on Thursday (January 11) it was going to delay making any decisions on whether scientists could do research on human-animal hybrid embryos until autumn, giving it time to conduct a thorough public consultation on the topic.

The decision was met with relief by researchers who had feared that the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) might bow to government pressure and ban the technology.

“Overall, it’s a lot better than we might have had,” said Lyle Armstrong from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, whose team is seeking permission to use animal cells to help generate human embryonic stem cells.

“Obviously it’s a bit disappointing that there is a delay in our application,” he told The Scientist, “but at least a **public consultation gives us a chance to explain why we want to do this work and what the science is all about.” **

We can only hope and pray the British public will be as forceful in expressing their concerns to the HFEA as the researchers undoubtedlywill be.
the-scientist.com/news/home/40757/