Sir, The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) will decide today its policy on medical and scientific embryo research which involves the mixing — for research purposes only — of human and animal cells and DNA.

This research is not unlawful under the HFE Act 1990, and it is widely believed that the HFEA can regulate much of it effectively under its existing strict controls. There are clear potential benefits to human health from, for example, being able to grow stem cells with specific genetic abnormalities, improving the efficiency of therapeutic cloning techniques and establishing cell lines for the testing of new treatments for diseases such as motor neuron disease, Alzheimer’s disease and spinal muscular atrophy. All this can be done without having to rely on the use of human eggs which are in very short supply and are needed for treatment of patients with infertility.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee recently concluded after a long inquiry that such research was ethically acceptable and should be defined and regulated by the HFEA.

Britain is rightly proud of its record in ethical and scientifically valid research on stem cells and therapeutic cloning. This reputation is now under threat because in its recent White Paper the Government has proposed, without giving any proper reason or citing any evidence, that much of this proposed research — that using animal eggs without their nuclei as the “activating casing” for cloned human embryos — should be banned in 2008 when a Bill updating the 1990 Act is passed.

Some people and some religious organisations object to this research, and most also object to all research involving early embryos. But many patient groups, leading scientists, doctors and ethicists support this research being able to proceed under the regulation of the HFEA.

We urge the HFEA to adopt a policy supportive of this sort of research, subject to its own strict licensing requirements and to the usual 14-day limit which applies to human embryos.

PROFESSOR JULIAN SAVALESCU
Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics in
the Philosophy Faculty at the University of Oxford.

AISLING BURNAND
Chief Executive, Bioindustries Association

PROFESSOR MARCUS PEMBREY
(Emeritus) Geneticist and Chairman, Progress
Educational Trust

PROFESSOR DAVID WHITTINGHAM
(Emeritus) Cell Biologist, St George’s
Hospital Medical School and Chair of
Trustees, Progress Educational Trust

DR MARILYN ROBERTSON
Director, Scottish Stem Cell Network

PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER F. HIGGINS
Director MRC Clinical Sciences Centre