A spate of legal challenges by those previously denied fertility treatment in the UK may follow the introduction of new human rights legislation this autumn, says Ruth Deech, chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The new act, which comes into effect from October, incorporates the European Convention...
The Cambridge-based biotech company Gemini Holdings has announced plans for a genetic database in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The project, to be called Newfound Genetics, is a joint venture between Gemini and a consortium called Lineage Biomedical, set up by Newfoundland doctors. It hopes to recruit families...
Texas-based company, Genetics Savings and Clone, is offering bereaved animal-lovers the chance to 'reincarnate' their dead pets. For a mere $2,500, the firm will take cells from a dead or dying animal and store them until they can be cloned. 'It's a major scientific challenge, but the team is 90...
US scientists have created the first mouse model of Down syndrome (DS), a condition that affects one in 700 human babies. People with DS have an extra copy of human chromosome 21, and the mice have three copies of the corresponding mouse chromosome regions. The researchers, speaking at the American...
The London Gynaecology and Fertility Centre, run by infertility specialist Ian Craft, settled a unique High Court claim last week over the unauthorised use of frozen sperm. Austrian businessman Michael von Schonberg sued the clinic after learning that his former girlfriend had given birth to a daughter, after using his...
PPL Therapeutics, the biotech firm that cloned Dolly the sheep, is close to producing the world's first cloned pigs, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph. A surrogate sow is due to give birth to three piglets in April, PPL scientists revealed at a biotech conference last week. But...
A leaked government document shows that ministers intend to promote the benefits of genetically-modified food and genetic engineering to the public. The draft White Paper on science and innovation, obtained by the Sunday Telegraph, is due to be published this summer. It says that more needs to be done to...
Craig Venter, of the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Maryland USA, is joint winner of the King Faisal International Prize for Science this year, along with biologist Professor Edward Wilson, of Harvard University. Venter has developed new, rapid techniques for identifying genes and sequencing entire genomes. Once part of...
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Comment
Human rights meet parental rights
by Juliet Tizzard
This week's BioNews includes news of the impending UK Human Rights Act, which might bring with it a rash of court cases from disgruntled people who have been refused fertility treatment on moral grounds. According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) chief, Ruth Deech, the new legislation may...