the Academy of medical sciences
the mice with liver manmade, goats with human blood cells, and other animals that contain human genes or cells are tools undoubtedly valuable for medical research, but they can also raise sensitive ethical issues and trigger public controversy. Recognizing this reality, a report published today by the British Academy of Medical Sciences recommends that the Government U.K. establish a commission of experts to help regulate certain types of experiments involving "animals containing human material."
The report authors hope that the public debate early in potentially controversial work before it is undertaken, will help encourage wider acceptance of this research. "We try to make this issue there before anything happened," says geneticist Martin Bobrow of Cambridge University, who chaired the working group of the Academy. "If public has heard of something, they are less likely to get irritable when something makes the headlines."
The report suggests that experiments with animals containing human material (ACHM) should be divided into three categories: those that should be subject to the same supervisory and regulatory and other animal experiments, those who should undergo further evaluation before receiving approval to proceed, and some that should be completely off-limits. The areas that should be further consideration include experiences that change the brain of an animal to make it more "human-like" experiences that put human germ functional cells in animals, experiments that could make the appearance or behavior of the human animal, and experiences that add human genes or cells in non-human primates.
Three types of experiments AChM should be prohibited, the report said, because they "lack of convincing scientific justification or raise very strong ethical concerns."
First, farm animals that have or may develop human germ cells in their gonads should not be allowed. Secondly, the report recommends ban on research that attempts to transplant cells sufficiently in human neurons in a non-human primate to induce human-like behavior. Finally, scientists should not allow embryos that mix cells and non human primates humans to develop beyond 14 days. Currently banned U.K. law allowing human embryos containing animal cells to develop more than 14 days. However, the embryos that are "primarily animal", but contain human cells are not regulated in the United Kingdom. The report recommends to fill this gap.
"We have not met with scientists who want to do the three category [off-limits] experience," said Robin Lovell working member of the Badge group a press conference this morning. Lovell-Badge, a stem cell biologist at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in London, said that several types of "category two" experiments have been proposed or are under way in Britain. For example, he said, researchers studying infertility grafted human testis and ovary cells under the skin of animals in an effort to better understand their development. And animals with human skin, he said, could help scientists better understand sunburn and its connection to skin cancer. "There are good scientific reasons it must be done," he said. "But if this is done, it should be closely monitored."
Government RU revise its monitoring of animal research to comply with a recent directive of the European Union. "We hope they will take this [report] account," Bobrow said, and to establish better cooperation between the UK Home Office, which regulates animal research, and the Ministry of Health, which oversees research involving human subjects. It is particularly important, he said, to close the loophole that allows unregulated experiments with embryos of animals containing human cells.
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