Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Drayson on 5 May (HL2987), what was the time lag between funding of research with induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and publication of such research in the journals Development (Volume 136, pages 1063-1069) or Nature (Volume 458, pages 766-775); and how this compares to the duration of time between provision of funding to derive human embryonic stem cells by nuclear transfer and research publications reporting this work.
Answer
As reported in PQ HL2990, the MRC has made one award which specifically addresses somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). The award, held by the University of Newcastle, aims 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 was funded in 2007 and is due to end towards the end of 2009. No research papers relating to this ongoing study have been published to date. The publications referred to on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) relate to ongoing MRC funding to the MRC Centre in Edinburgh and Professor Smith's team in Cambridge. This work was commenced prior to the MRC call for platform technology proposals in iPSC, funded in April 2009, though has been directly aided by the additional funding provided through this call. It should be noted that the timescale of developments using these two distinct approaches is not directly comparable, since SCNT represents technology in development, with significant technological hurdles in relation to using human oocytes, which are being addressed through the MRC award to the University of Newcastle. This is in contrast to the iPSC field, which has moved rapidly since the original proof of concept in mouse (2006) and human (2007) cells through the concerted efforts of numerous laboratories worldwide able to utilise the published methodology.