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Strategy for creating pluripotent cells called into question.The creation of human?animal hybrid embryos ? proposed as a way to generate embryonic stem cells without relying on scarce human eggs ? has met with legislative hurdles and public outcry. But a paper published this week suggests that the approach has another, more fundamental problem: it may simply not work. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, a stem-cell company based in Los Angeles, California, and his colleagues show that in their labs, early-stage human?cow, human?mouse and human?rabbit hybrid embryos fail to grow beyond 16 cells (Y. Chung et al. Cloning Stem Cells...

Gordon Brown backs animal-human hybrids By Subhajit Banerjee and agencies Last Updated: 2:31PM BST 18/05/2008   Gordon Brown today strongly defended the medical use of animal-human hybrid embryos, ahead of a key Commons vote on the issue. The Prime Minister said that stem cell research was an "inherently moral endeavour" and a "profound opportunity" to save and transform millions of lives. "Britain is at the forefront of this research and responsible for much of the worldwide progress," he wrote in The Observer newspaper. The premier supports scientists who want to insert the nuclei of human cells into animal eggs,...

A British pro-life group warns that a new type of embryo research, likely to be approved this week by a U.K. government panel, undermines human dignity. Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority is expected to give a green light this week to U.K. laboratories seeking to create the first animal-human embryos for medical research using eggs taken from dead cows. British scientists want to use the hybrid embryos in order to research genetic diseases. Anthony Ozimic, political secretary for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, opposes the embryo-destructive research. He says that an "a-nucleated" cow egg will only...

UK scientists, who want to mix human and animal cells in order to find cures for degenerative diseases, have had permission for their research delayed so that the ethical issues can be subject to public consultation (Guardian Unlimited). Scientists from Kings College, London, have applied for a licence for hybrid stem cell work on motor neurone disease. A second team from Newcastle University have applied to research how different tissues grow in the body. But after consideration of whether the two research requests came under its remit, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) recently decided that there are currently...

washingtonpost.com Cloning Yields Human-Rabbit Hybrid Embryo By Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 14, 2003; Page A04 Scientists in China have, for the first time, used cloning techniques to create hybrid embryos that contain a mix of DNA from both humans and rabbits, according to a report in a scientific journal that has reignited the smoldering ethics debate over cloning research.