Human-animal 'cybrids' may not be possible
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* 14 September 2007
* Andy Coghlan
* Magazine issue 2621
AFTER months of wrangling, British researchers were last week granted their wish: they can now apply to create embryos containing both animal and human material for research. But while the ethical qualms about creating embryos that are 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent animal appear to have been put to one side, there remain questions about whether it will be practically possible.
The UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates embryo research, said on 5 September that it backed the idea of creating "cybrids" by fusing human DNA with an egg from a rabbit or cow stripped of its nuclear DNA. This sets it apart from a "hybrid" created through fusion of a sperm and an egg from different species, or a chimera created by mixing tissues from two species.
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