Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Wilcox on 31 January 2011 (WA 219-20) regarding international collaboration to overcome difficulties with research into somatic cell nuclear transfer, what steps were taken by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to enable Professor Diane Beeson of California State University East Bay and Professor Tina Stevens of San Francisco State University to attend the session regarding procurement of human oocytes at their joint workshop convened in San Francisco in June 2010 following an initial refusal to admit them.[HL3399]
Answer
In June 2010 the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) held a workshop in San Francisco to examine somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) and its role in stem cell research, summarising the state of the global research effort in this area. The workshop brought together many of the preeminent researchers in the field of SCNT to discuss whether SCNT is achievable in humans, what challenges exist, and whether human SCNT offers any scientific or medical advantages over other methods of cellular reprogramming.
The workshop was organised by CIRM and was not open to the public. The MRC has consulted with CIRM on this question and understands that two individuals, who were not invited workshop participants, came to the meeting venue and asked to be admitted. They spoke to a CIRM employee, and expressed interest in a session on procurement of human oocytes, a session that had concluded before they arrived. The CIRM employee offered to find one of the CIRM meeting organisers, to find out whether the two additional individuals could participate in the remainder of the workshop, and asked for their names and areas of interest. They declined to give their names, and left.