Lord Robert Winston talks about a succesful Sciencewise-ERC project on hybrid and chimera embryos.
The project was part of the HFEAs public and stakeholder consultation on hybrids and chimera embryos, which was carried out to guide the Authoritys recommendations to Government on whether this type of research should be allowed in the future.
The project included a number of dialogue activities to test public opinion and explore how people balance the ethics, risks and benefits of mixing human and animal genetic material.
The results of the public dialogue were fed into the wider stakeholder consultation, which resulted in the HFEA announcing on 5 September 2007 that, having taken account of all views, it had decided to allow hybrid/chimera embryo research in principle, under strict guidelines.
The Authority then went on to grant licence applications from researchers at two UK universities to carry out research using hybrid/chimera embryos.
