Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Drayson on 19 May 2009 (WA 290), to what extent the stated aim to "develop a reproducible method of generating human embryonic stem cells following the transfer of the nucleus of an adult somatic cell into an oocyte" was achieved following the end of Professor Mary Herbert’s research study; and when a sample of the stem cell lines derived following nuclear transfer was deposited in the United Kingdom Stem Cell Bank.
Answer
The findings of the Medical Research Council (MRC) funded grant to the University of Newcastle, Improving the Efficiency of Human Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT), are described in the research publications listed on the RCUK Gateway to Research. It can be found at http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/project/AB211BD5-0A06-4819-ABD3-A29097543302
The work was also presented at a workshop on SCNT convened in San Francisco by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the MRC in June 2010. The workshop report was published on the MRC website and discussions are described in the paper Finding the niche for human somatic cell nuclear transfer: Grieshammer et al 2011, Nat. Biotech: 29.
The project included an undertaking that any embryonic stem cell lines that were derived during the project would be deposited in the UK Stem Cell Bank in accordance with the investigators HFEA license. However, derivation of ESC lines was not a primary aim of the project. No lines were derived and therefore none have been deposited.