INTRODUCING HUMAN cells into animals needs better regulation in keeping with popular ethical opinion and to avoid running into “Frankenstein” in the future, an elite group of British medical scientists have warned.
In a report published on Saturday, they express their concerns over handling the “fast moving pace” of research projects that use ACMH — animals containing human material — a type of experimentation where human biological material is added to modify the test animals to better represent the human condition being studied.
Professor Martin Bobrow, chair of the working group that produced the report said: “The very great majority of experiments present no issues beyond the general use of animals in research and these should proceed under current regulation. A very limited range should not be undertaken, at least until the potential consequences are more fully understood.”
This technique is commonplace in advanced neurological research, and is also applied in other areas of medical testing and basic research.
Through public surveys and rigorous scientific discussion at the Academy of Medical Science in London, the report rejects ACMH in research that involves modification of the animal brain that resembles a human-like cerebral function and fertilisation to produce human-animal embryo.
Notably, survey respondents were for such research if it benefited medical advancement but as long as it didn’t thrust any persistent human traits on the animals, physical or otherwise.
Impairing the gene pool through such experiments is a possible outcome in case of closely-linked species — non-human primates like chimps.
A study published last year demonstrated the possibility of the germline inheritance of genetic modifications introduced in monkeys.
The report further says that such an occurrence “holds out the possibility of creating a breeding colony of transgenic humanised monkeys.”
Especially risky are the experiments involving infectious agents, like viruses, specific to humans and never seen in the test animal species.
“Experiments that bring human and animal tissues close together might lead to the activation of dormant human or animal viruses within an animal and allow them to recombine, swap their genetic material and possibly create new disease risks.”
The study group also recommends improving the regulatory standards for such research and extrapolating these internationally, as “outsourcing” such laboratory work is hardly a challenge.