Embryology News Review

News items are listed by date, starting with the most recent:

2000 - current

Embryonic Stem Cells reach UK (October 2003)
Human-rabbit embryos (October 2003)
Fetal implants fail in Parkinson's trial (July 2001)
Fetal Pain Debate Reopened (January 2001)
Public to be given say in life of embryo (April 2000)
Fewer embryos to be transferred to womb (April 2000)

1997 - 1999

Human embryos may be cloned for stem cells (October 1999)
Fetal faces on ultrasound (April 1999)
Fetuses to be given pain killers (January 1999)
Smoking causes Cancer in Fetuses (January 1999)
Fetuses can remember music (July 1998)
New treatment for Parkinson's disease (July 1998)
Fetal rights ? (January 1998)
New technique for neonatal surgery (October 1997)
Successful intrauterine bone marrow transplantation (April 1997)
Retinal cell transplants from aborted fetuses (April 1997)
Report on fetal sentience publishes (January 1997)
3,300 embryos destroyed (January 1997)

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October 2003

Embryonic stem cells reach UK

Scientists at King's College, London have created the first embryonic stem cell line in the UK. Unwanted embryos from IVF treatment were used in this research. The embryo that established the cell line was donated by a couple who had completed their IVF treatment.

The King's team were one of two groups granted a licence by the HFEA to work with embryos, since the House of Lords approved such study in 2002. Ethical considerations resulted in the slightly slower pace of research in the UK. Other embryonic stem cell lines have already been established in countries such as the United States, where the first line was created in 1999.

The cells in the UK will be stored in the national stem cell bank, where they will be accessible to other researchers. Future work will go into using these cells to treat type I diabetes mellitus and Parkinson's disease. However, viable treatments are deemed to be some way off. Pro-life groups have already denounced the latest breakthrough, saying that it violated the human rights and interests of the embryos. The ethical alternative of adult stem cells remains a more promising source of potential therapies. (New Scientist 2003; 13 August, bbc.co.uk 2003; 13 August, Independent 2003; 13 August)

Human-rabbit embryos

Human cells have been fused with rabbit eggs following embryonic stem cell research in China. The work was done at the Shanghai Second Medical School, directed by Hui-zhen Sheng. Foreskins were taken from two men and a boy, and facial skin from a woman to create the cells.

The stem cells were shown to have the ability to differentiate into various tissues, making them a potential source of transplantable cells. However, the Chinese group failed to demonstrate that the cultures could grow indefinitely, limiting their usefulness.

Cloning by recruiting material from other species has attracted interest from researchers because of the ethical problems of obtaining discarded human embryos: it is thought that hybrid embryos could bypass such considerations. Previous attempts from other labs to create such interspecies embryos have failed except for closely related animals, leading to scientific scepticism about the latest announcement. In addition, concerns have been raised about remaining rabbit DNA in the hybrid embryonic stem cells that could cause human immune responses.

General scientific opinion has been mixed over the issue, with some hailing this as an important step forward, but others remaining concerned about the 'yuck factor'. (New Scientist 2003; 15 August)

July 2001

Fetal implants fail in Parkinson's trial

A trial aimed at improving the symptoms of Parkinson's disease by implanting fetal cells in patient's brains has suffered a major setback, with devastating side effects occuring in 15 per cent of the subjects. Parkinson's disease strikes when dopamine-producing cells from the brain's substantia nigra region die and surgeons had hoped that brain cells from aborted fetuses would take over and replace the dead cells. Fetal cell tissue has been experimented with for brain repair since the 1980's and around 300 patients have been treated worldwide. However, due to variations in method, it has been impossible to draw conclusions from the different trials.

The group from Colorado University devised a new trial which included the controversial step of carrying out placebo 'sham surgery' on one patient group. The transplants grew and produced clinical improvement in the younger patients. However, the results showed that patients over 60 experienced no significant improvement in their condition. More disturbingly, in 15 per cent of patients the transplants exacerbated the patients already severe dyskinesia - one patient could no longer eat, and now must be fed using a nasogastric tube. The clinicians are planning a further trial to insert a kill-switch into the fetal cells for implantation. A drug could then be given to destroy the implants using the cells own destruction program if these side-effects occur in the future. (Times 2001; 15 March)

January 2001

Fetal Pain Debate Reopened

Prof Vivette Glover of Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in London has reopened the debate about fetal awareness by calling for abortions performed between 17 and 24 weeks to be carried out under anaesthetic. Over 90% of terminations take place before week 13 but concern has resurfaced about the next eleven weeks. Prof Glover said, 'It is incredibly unlikely that the foetus could feel anything before 13 weeks because there is no linking to the brain at all. After 26 weeks it is quite probable. But between 17 and 26 it is increasingly possible that it starts to feel something and that abortions done in that period ought to use anaesthesia.'

The issue of fetal awareness has been previously reviewed in Nucleus. A 1997 report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) suggested that fetuses cannot experience pain before 26 weeks' gestation. This received substantial media attention. However, the report of the Commission of Inquiry into Fetal Sentience (the Rawlinson Report) suggested that pain may be experienced from as early as 5.5 weeks. Predictably, this received far less publicity. (Telegraph 2000; 29 August, 1998; January:2-3)

April 2000

Public to be given say in life of embryo

The HFEA has published a consultation document asking the public which diseases are serious enough to warrant an abortion. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is already used for families who are at high risk of having a baby with a serious genetic disorder such as cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy. The HFEA has decided that PGD is only acceptable for life-threatening medical disorders and must not be used for sex-selection or physical, social or psychological characteristics. There is concern that embryo selection will become more and more acceptable and pregnancies will be prevented for increasingly trivial medical conditions. (The Telegraph 1999; 28 November)

Fewer embryos to be transferred to womb

Leading doctors have called for a decrease in the number of embryos to be transferred to women undergoing fertility treatment. The usual number is currently three, and the doctors want it to be lowered to two, saying that there is an unacceptably high rate of multiple births as a result of fertility treatments (Telegraph 2000; 21 January).

October 1999

Human embryos may be cloned for stem cells

The World Medical Association is planning to discuss cloning of human embryos at its annual general meeting in October. New advances in cloning have been coming so rapidly that a fresh debate is needed. In the UK, the Government has retained a ban on cloning embryos for reproductive purposes, although techniques involving replacement of the cell nucleus in order to clone tissues may be permitted in the future, after more debate. The prospect that human embryos will be routinely cloned has drawn closer because of efforts to develop commercial treatments for a range of ailments, from diabetes to heart disease, by using cloning to generate a patient's own cells and tissue. Current research plans to dismantle early cloned human embryos before 14 days as a source of stem cells. These will then be used to grow tissues for transplant and organ repair, rather than implanting the cloned embryos into a surrogate mother to produce a cloned human. Critics argue that such work marks an important step towards the first cloned baby, and it is not illegal in the US to attempt to clone human beings. Lord Winston has suggested that scientists use spare embryos from IVF treatments (that would otherwise be destined for destruction) for growing human tissues, thus side-stepping the need for actual cloning of new embryos (BMJ 1999;319:8, 3 July, Telegraph 1999; 18 June, Telegraph 1999; 15 June, Telegraph 1999; 25 June, Telegraph 1999; 1 July).

April 1999

Fetal faces on ultrasound

Recent advances in ultrasound scanning will soon allow parents to see the faces of their unborn children. The new technique was presented to obstetricians in Edinburgh last year; it will improve diagnosis of fetal abnormalities, and may also allow doctors to perform keyhole fetal surgery instead of potentially dangerous invasive surgery. Pro-life groups have welcomed the advance, and a member of Life suggested that doctors should allow women who want an abortion to see the faces of their unborn babies, 'so that they fully understand what they are doing'. (The Telegraph 1998; 11 December)

January 1999

Fetuses to be given painkillers

The Government is considering drawing up new guidelines that would require the administration of pain-killing drugs to fetuses before abortion or intra-uterine surgery. The new guidelines would deal with a legal anomaly that protects unborn animals against scientific experiments, but allows operations and abortions to be performed on human fetuses. Under the 1968 Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act, experiments cannot be carried out on animal fetuses from mid-gestation to specifically protect 'any living vertebrate other than man'. (The Telegraph 1998; 9 August)

Smoking causes Cancer in Fetuses

Recent research has found that one of the strongest carcinogens in tobacco smoke is passed on to the developing fetuses of pregnant women who smoke. The carcinogen (NNK) is taken up and processed by the fetus and has been found in alarming quantities postnatally. Hopefully these findings will encourage more women to give up smoking, as currently 60% do not give up during pregnancy.

Furthermore, maternal exposure to passive smoke is sufficient to induce deleterious genetic deletion mutations in the developing fetus. These mutations are potentially carcinogenic.(BMJ 1998;317:555, 29 August), BMJ 1998;317:903, 3 October)

July 1998

Fetuses can Remember Music

Babies in the womb can hear and remember music as early as 20 weeks' gestation according to research at Keele University. Babies responded to familiar music after birth by becoming calm and relaxed while unfamiliar music produced no reaction.

Research at Queen's University, Belfast, has shown that fetuses exhibit right or left-handedness as early as ten weeks' gestation.

This new evidence calls further into question the claim of the recent RCOG report that fetuses cannot feel pain before 26 weeks.

Interestingly, the study received little attention in the medical press, in keeping with the general policy of selective reporting in this field. The question of whether or not fetuses are sentient was recently discussed in Nucleus. (The Times 1998; 30 March:6, BMJ 1997;315:1112, 1 November, Nucleus 1998; January:2,3)

New Treatment for Parkinson's Disease?

Transplantation of dopaminergic neurones from aborted human fetuses as a treatment for Parkinson's disease has been under trial for some years, but the approach raises ethical dilemmas and results are thus far variable.

Recently, researchers at the University of Colorado have transplanted dopamine producing neuronal cells from cloned cow embryos into parkinsonian rats and produced a significant improvement in motor function.

If problems of rejection could be overcome by genetic modification, the process may well work in humans. Ultimately it may be possible to convert human fibroblasts into dopamine producing cells and obviate any call for embryonic tissue. (Nucleus 1996; July:16-20, BMJ 1998;316:1407, 9 May)

January 1998

Fetal Rights?

On 31 October, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against Manitoba's social services department for confining a pregnant woman with a solvent habit for the purpose of protecting her unborn child. Madam Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote that confinement would violate 'the most sacred sphere of personal liberty - the right of every person to live and move in freedom... A pregnant woman and her unborn child are one. To make orders protecting fetuses would radically impinge on the fundamental liberties of the mother'. (Lancet 1997;350:1377, 8 November)

October 1997

New techniques for neonatal surgery

Neonatal corrective surgery of congenital defects faces problems as babies have very little spare tissue to use in repair. A Harvard researcher has pioneered a technique whereby small tissue samples were removed from a lamb in utero and cultured. The engineered tissue was then used for surgery after birth, resulting in faster healing and maturing than with artificial materials. Human trials could begin in the next five years. (New Scientist 1997; 2092:13)

April 1997

Successful intrauterine bone marrow transplantation

Several infants destined to develop the severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCIDS) have had their disease prevented by in utero transabdominal bone marrow transplantation. The success of the technique may herald a new era in the treatment of some types of genetic disorders.

In two recent cases the infants were born and remain healthy with a reconstituted immune system. SCIDS is a hereditary immunodeficiency disorder leading to recurrent opportunistic infections and death, usually within the first two years of life. Conventional postnatal bone marrow transplantation for the condition is hampered by graft rejection, graft versus host disease and the need for immunosuppression.

This successful application of fetal bone marrow transplants has sparked hope for the prevention of other genetic diseases such as thalassaemia and sickle cell anaemia, Gaucher's, Hurler's and Tay-Sachs disease. (BMJ 1997; 314:170)

Retinal cell transplants from aborted fetuses

Four blind patients have had their vision partially restored with experimental fetal retinal cell transplants. They all had late-stage retinitis pigmentosa, an incurable hereditary disease.

Dr Manuel del Cerro of New York presented the results of eighteen patients at the Society of Neuroscience's annual meeting in November 1996. About one million photoreceptor cells from aborted fetuses aged 14-16 weeks were implanted into the fovea of one eye in each patient. In the future Dr del Cerro hopes to try transplants at an earlier stage of the disease. His work was well received at the meeting.

January 1997

Report on fetal sentience published

On October 21 the Commission of Inquiry into Fetal Sentience published a review of more than 70 scientific papers and reports on fetal pain perception. Assessments for the gestation when a fetus is first conscious of noxious stimuli ranged from six to 26 weeks . This report followed that of the all-party Parliamentary Pro-Life group and another from Queen Charlotte's Hospital both giving ten weeks as the threshold. The findings have fuelled calls for fetal analgesia during prenatal surgery and abortion. (Bull Med Ethics July/August 1996; Independent 22/10/96)

3,300 frozen embryos destroyed

Time ran out on 1st August for 3,300 spare frozen embryos, created as by-products of IVF treatment. The embryos, stored at 32 British fertility clinics, were compulsorily destroyed under a five-year storage limit, enforced in 1991 by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. Pro-lifers appealed in vain for a stay of execution; 130 couples approached the anti-abortion group Life, offering to adopt an embryo. In all, 9,000 frozen embryos were produced between 1985 and 1991. About half a dozen ova are usually fertilised in IVF attempts, in case the first implantation (of three embryos) fails. Under regulations issued in May, the maximum storage time was extended to 10 years if both parents provided written consent. However, 900 couples could not be traced or contacted. Christians must uphold protection for innocent life, believing that all human life is made in God's image (Gn 9:6). We should have grave misgivings about programmes involving creation of spare latent human lives for storage and disposal. (Daily Telegraph, Aug 1 1996; Time, Aug 12 1996)