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Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said on Wednesday (June 16) that it was considering the country's first application to undertake human cell nuclear replacement for medical research. But the decision may not be made public for some time.
A team from the Centre for Life in Newcastle applied for the license to perform somatic cell nuclear transfer with the aim of deriving stem cells for transplanting into patients with conditions such as diabetes.
Alison Murdoch, who leads the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life, made the application. She said the research would use eggs donated by patients undergoing treatment for fertility at the center.
"We are very grateful to all those patients who help with this research. Although the studies will not directly help them, they are playing a vital role in helping other patients," Murdoch said.
"We are looking at 5 to 10 years before we can even begin to think about having readily available cures," Murdoch told BBC radio. "But we have got to start somewhere, and this is so promising we can't afford not to let it happen."
The Centre for Life was one of two groups who deposited the first embryonic stem cell lines at the UK Stem Cell Bank in May.
Cell nuclear replacement has been legal in the United Kingdom since 2002, although the country has rigid rules forbidding reproductive cloning. A spokeswoman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority told The Scientist, "Alison Murdoch's is the first and only application for cell nuclear replacement we've received."
The spokeswoman confirmed that the agency's research licensing committee was meeting to discuss the application today, but said that the announcement would "definitely not be today, and probably not this week." It could be as distant as a month away, she said.
The committee's deliberations will include feedback from peer review of the group's proposal, the curriculum vitae of staff involved in the project, the results of an inspection of laboratory facilities, and an assessment of the information and counseling available to patients.
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