§ Bob SpinkTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many embryos the Medical Research Council envisages requiring per year for its embryo stem cell bank; and what their planned budget is for the bank. [97989]
§ Ms HewittThe bank will store adult, foetal and embryonic stem cell lines derived by the research community in the UK and overseas. Such lines will be ethically sourced and quality controlled. Embryonic stem cells will be supplied to the bank from IVF embryos donated for research. The MRC does not know how many embryos will be so donated.
However, it is a condition of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority licence that all embryonic stem cell lines derived in the UK must be deposited in the bank. It will be a condition of MRC funding for stem cell research that adult, foetal and embryonic stem cell lines generated with such funding must be deposited in the bank. Other UK funders are likely to adopt the same terms and conditions. Deposition in, and access of lines from the UK bank will be overseen by the Steering Committee chaired by Lord Patel. Since the UK bank will provide standardised stem cell lines for research purposes, the need for individual research groups to derive their own stem cell lines will be reduced, thereby minimising the overall number of embryos used.
The UK stem cell bank is being funded at a level of £2.6 million over three years. MRC will contribute 75 per cent., and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council 25 per cent. of these costs.
§ Bob SpinkTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how much the MRC has spent on research using human embryos in each the past 20 years. [97990]
§ Ms HewittThe majority of the research on embryos supported by the Medical Research Council involves material collected from animal models; only a small number of projects involve human embryos. Human embryonic tissue is currently used in the study of developmental biology and research on the treatment of disease. MRC does not keep historical figures for spend on such research, but estimates that in the last financial year (2001–02) it spent £0.6 million on research involving or related to human embryos.