Professor Murdoch admitted the research had a long way to go
Posted in General on 02. Oct, 2010
Professor Murdoch admitted the research had a long way to go. “We are intending to use spare eggs or abnormally fertilised eggs from IVF primarily, and skin cells from another person,” she said.A primary goal of the Newcastle team is to create a line of embryonic stem cells for use in diabetes research, with the hope it could lead to the creation of insulin-producing tissue. Professor Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, the scientist who created Dolly, has said he will apply for a licence but the HFEA has not yet received an application from him.Professor Murdoch said: “We wouldn’t be embarking on this work unless we felt we had a good chance of being successful. Embryonic stem cells can be made to grow into any special-ised tissue and are seen as vital for future transplant medicine.Professor Murdoch said the purpose of creating a cloned human embryo using the “nuclear transfer” technique used to create Dolly the cloned sheep was to derive similar embryonic stem cells from the patient who needed them.
If these cells were grown into a therapeutic product and transplanted back, she said, they would not be rejected.The Newcastle team has stolen a march on other scientists interested in therapeutic cloning. “We are not going to be granted that licence unless the appropriate authorities believe we have the expertise, and I believe we do,” she said yesterday.The Newcastle team is one of only two groups in Britain that have already cultured stem cells from ordinary human embryos. I understand customers’ resentment but I would look at what the companies are doing with the money.”Southern Water, which supplies Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, is proposing a 45 per cent rise, taking the average household bill from £247 to £358. Average bills for United Utilities, which supplies the North-west, would rise from £255 to £356 by 2009-10.. A plan to create the first cloned human embryo in Britain by the end of the year is expected to receive the go-ahead within weeks following a licence application from a team of medical researchers at Newcastle University.
“Given the pressures on the companies, I do see it likely that prices will go up significantly. They will look for a decent return.”He said the average 29 per cent rise was inevitable. “But there will always be a need to raise funds and shareholders have no need to hold those shares. “Returns were very high in the 1990s and I would defend Ofwat’s decision that saw a big step-down in those rates of return,” he said. These are the assets the shareholders bought at privatisation and they should be paying, not the customer.”I have seen annual reports from companies boasting of how many thousands of water mains and sewers they have refurbished or replaced, but suddenly we find this is not the case after all.”But Philip Fletcher, the director general of water services at Ofwat, said shareholders should not have to pay for new pipes and sewers through lower dividends.
They are being asked to pay up-front for investment to replace worn-out water mains and sewers. Spokesman Andrew Marsh said they would create increased poverty and debt in the most deprived households. “There are already many customers struggling to pay and the debts problem in the industry is growing,” he said. “The outstanding revenue for those who have been in debt for longer than 12 months stands at £434m. We certainly do not need any more added to this.”Water Watch, a campaign forum, urged the industry’s regulator, Ofwat, to take a “tough stance” on the proposed rise. Pete Bowler, the organisation’s campaigns officer, said: “Water customers are being fleeced.