UK Stem Cell Vote: It's decision time for 'hybrid' human-animal embryos

The United Kingdom's regulatory body for stem cell and fertility research will vote Wednesday to determine whether a team of British scientists should be allowed to use animal eggs in human embryonic stem cell research. And like a science fiction movie gone awry, the public frenzy has reached fever pitch over the research that critics say crosses the delicate human-animal divide.

Chris Shaw, a neurology professor at King's College London, and Ian Wilmut, the Edinburgh University scientist famous for cloning Dolly the sheep, have submitted a proposal to the U.K.'s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HEFA) to use a process called cell nuclear replacement for the production of stem cell lines. Human DNA would be implanted into an animal egg so that it starts dividing, and then removed from the animal egg to be grown into different kinds of stem cells.

The scientists say that the use of animal eggs to create human stem cells could be beneficial in that the process avoids the use of human eggs or fetuses. But the possibility of using animal eggs to host human...