A leading British scientist is leaving the country to work in France after claiming that British science gives too much priority to embryo experiments over “more ethical” alternatives.

Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University, believes that more funding should be given to work with adult stem cells.

He is quitting after just three years with one of his most senior colleagues to go to an institute in Lyons.

McGuckin was part of the first team to grow liver tissue using adult stem cells taken from blood in the umbilical cord. Some scientists believe that it is more ethical to use adult stem cells, as research work on cells from human embryos destroys the embryo.

Last week the House of Commons passed a controversial bill that makes it legal to create animal-human hybrid embryos for research. Foreign scientists are surprised at how liberal British laws on embryo research have become.

McGuckin says Newcastle University and the government’s funding bodies give too much preference to embryo experiments.

He told Times Higher Education that France had kept a “much more reasoned balance”. He added: “[France] is very supportive of adult stem cells because they know that these are the things that are in the clinic right now.

“A vast amount of money in the UK from the government has gone into embryonic stem cell research with not one patient having been treated, to the detriment of [research into] adult stem cells, which has been severely underfunded.”

McGuckin is the second leading stem cell scientist to leave Newcastle in the past two years. In 2006 the scientist who cloned Britain’s first human embryo quit to take up a post in Spain after accusing his research partner of trying to take credit for his team’s work.

Newcastle University and the Medical Research Council, which allocates government funding, deny bias.

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