Over-egging the clones

UNTIL the end of last year, fusing human cells with animal eggs to create “hybrid” cloned embryos was considered an obscure area of reproductive science, not key to the future of stem cell science. That all changed, it seems, with the publication of the UK government’s white paper on embryo research, which prompted politicians, Nobel laureates and the research establishment to line up in support of hybrid embryos as though the future of stem cell research depended on it. The clamour continued until last week, when the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) announced it would hold a public consultation on whether such research should be allowed.…