Question
asked Her Majesty's Government:Further to the Written Answers by Lord Darzi of Denham on 19 June (WA 177–78), 24 June (WA 227) and 8 July (WA 73), which of the centres licensed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) are known to have been culturing whole embryos to form outgrowths for more than 14 days; how many embryonic stem cell lines in total have been deposited by each of these centres in the UK Stem Cell Bank; what proportion of the stem cell lines deposited by each of these licensed centres were derived from outgrowing embryos; and which of these licensed centres were simultaneously pursuing projects for which one of the specified purposes considered by the HFEA in corresponding licence applications was ““increasing knowledge about the development of embryos””.
Answer
No licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) permits centres to culture live human embryos beyond 14 days or the appearance of the primitive streak, in accordance with Sections 3(3)(a) and 3(4) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Act 1990. Entities which form when human embryos are allowed to outgrow their structure are not classed as live human embryos and do not breach Sections 3(3)(a) and 3(4) of the 1990 HFE Act. This is because the entities do not have the organisation structure of a viable embryo and are not representative of a 3D suspended embryo undergoing gastrulation (the stage of development during which the primitive streak emerges). The HFEA has issued licences to two centres (St Mary's Manchester and Roslin Cells Limited) that allow embryos to outgrow in this way in order to extract the inner cell mass. One research project (at Guy's Hospital, London) has been licensed by the HFEA under several purposes, including increasing knowledge about the development of embryos. It is a condition of an HFEA research licence that if a stem cell is derived a sample of the line has to be deposited in the United Kingdom Stem Cell Bank. The HFEA is aware that 35 stem cell lines have been derived under HFEA licences. Information on the lines that have been deposited and the number of lines awaiting to be deposited can be found on the UK Stem Cell Bank website at: www.ukstemcellbank.org.uk.