The creation of human-animal hybrid embryos on the way. UK lawmakers backed a new law which will let scientists create "Frankenstein-style" part-human, part-animal embryos.

'Frankenstein embryo' backed - 20 / 05 / 2008 11:38

U.K. lawmakers voted to let scientists use stem cells derived from hybrid human-animal embryos in medical research.

 As part of two days of debate on changes to laws on fertility research, members of Parliament voted 336 to 176 against an amendment to ban the use of hybrids.

 Prime Minister Gordon Brown allowed members of his party to vote with their consciences after church leaders condemned the plans as immoral.

 Brown backs research using hybrid embryos and urged lawmakers to support the bill in a vote on Monday.

In a newspaper article yesterday, he praised hybrid techniques as an ``inherently moral endeavor'' and said they could save millions of lives.

British scientists, who can conduct research that U.S. President George W. Bush restricted in 2001, are concerned they'll fall behind other countries if the measures in the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill are defeated.

Chinese and U.S. academics already have produced stem cells extracted from part- human, part-animal embryos.

Proposed changes to the 1990 Human Fertilization and Embryology Act would allow researchers to generate stem cells from hybrid embryos. The embryos are created by inserting DNA from the skin cell of a person into animal eggs, whose own nucleus and genetic material have been removed.

Such research is already done in the U.S. and China.

 A later vote permitted the creation of  "savior siblings.'' Those are babies born from embryos selected because they are a good tissue match for an elder brother or sister sick with a genetic condition.

Embryonic cells are valued because they have the ability to turn into any of the roughly 210 cell types found in the human body.

Researchers want to make hybrid embryos using the DNA of humans with incurable conditions such as Parkinson's disease, diabetes and spinal cord injury because the resulting stem cells would give them a way to study the disease and develop treatments.

 Human eggs are in short supply and donating them can be uncomfortable for women.

Critics of hybrid research have condemned it as anti-human and Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the most senior Roman Catholic in Scotland, dubbed the techniques ``experiments of Frankenstein proportion.''

Three members of Brown's Cabinet, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, Defence Secretary Des Browne and Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy, are Catholics and voted against allowing hybrid embryos.

Bloomberg