Human-Cow Embryo Planned

[Christina]

I can only think of one word for this report ABOMINATION.......Human-cow hybrid embryo plannedBy Nigel HawkesStem-cell researchers have applied to produce an embryo using an animal’s egg and a human cell British scientists are to submit plans to create a hybrid embryo — part human, part cow. They are to develop a way of creating stem cells that does not require human eggs, but the application seems likely to be met with controversy. The team, from the University of Newcastle, would take a cow’s egg and remove the nucleus. They would then replace it with the nucleus of a cell taken from an adult human, such as a skin cell. The hybrid would be overwhelmingly human — 99.9 per cent, according to the team, led by Lyle Armstrong, of the North East England Stem Cell Institute. The other 0.1 per cent would be animal. The embryo would then be allowed to divide for six days, when the team would try to extract stem cells, which have many potential applications in medicine. The hybrid embryo would be destroyed, as all research embryos are, at 14 days. The application will be made to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, although it is by no means clear that the research falls within its remit. Some experts claim that hybrids, because they are not 100 per cent human, are outside the law under which the HFEA was established more.... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2440721,00.html