Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Drayson on 20 April (WA 329) regarding competitive science, how research previously described as having a "virtually zero success rate" was classed as competitive and considered as an "exceptional case" for funding in a press statement from the Medical Research Council (MRC) on 13 September 2007; and how the stem cells derived from funding in the specific case concerned have subsequently been used in treating human disease.
Answer
The comment made in February 2007 by the MRC's then chief executive relating to somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), expressed his view that at that time the efficiency of the process was very low. The primary aim of the MRC's award to the University of Newcastle, made later that year, was to incorporate technological advances to improve the efficiency of SCNT in human oocytes and develop a reproducible method of generating human embryonic stem cells following the transfer of the nucleus of an adult somatic cell into an oocyte. The project, which is due to end towards the end of 2009, will not derive stem cells for use in treatments. The project was subject to the MRC's rigorous peer review process and was considered to be internationally competitive. The exceptional nature of the award was due to the need to consider carefully the ethics of sourcing eggs for the project from an egg sharing programme. The MRC's council made the award after careful consideration of advice from the MRC's Ethics Policy Advisory Committee, which advised that the sourcing of eggs through this route would, in this case, be ethically acceptable and that the funding would not encourage the donating women to take risks that they would otherwise not take.