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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I rise briefly to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I declare an interest as an employee of Imperial College London, working in the Institute of Developmental and Reproductive Biology and as a director of a spin-out company which is involved in the modification of gamete cells. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the prevalence of the kind of infertility that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, is addressing. It is now extremely common to see young women who cannot produce egg cells for one reason or another. Indeed, I think I have seen it written somewhere that it is now the fifth most common cause of anovulatory infertility—which is rising in a population that is tending to gain skills, get better education and leave childbearing a little later. By the age of 40 a very large number of women have run out of eggs in their ovary and cannot conceive naturally, although they would be in a perfect position to have children were an egg to be available. As we know, the donation of eggs, which is dealt with elsewhere in the Bill, is a very fraught subject and not acceptable to all infertile couples. People would quite reasonably prefer to have their own genetic material, as I mentioned at Second Reading. In the case of the male, testicular failure—the failure of germ cells to mature to produce sperm—is extremely common. It can occur as a result of many factors, some of which are unknown. A few factors are genetic, and some are due to injury. As we get better at treating diseases such as Hodgkin’s disease and cancer, we are also increasingly finding men with maturation arrest; that is, when the testicle is no longer producing sperm. These issues are extremely common and cause great distress to patients. They are important clinical issues. At present the only alternative available to these people is a donated gamete, a solution which all noble Lords agree is not ideal. Although we accept it within the legislation, it is, broadly speaking, much better if people can have their own genetic child. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, there is growing evidence of a research ability to produce gametes that are likely to be entirely viable in mice and other mammals, and it is very likely that this technology could be applied also to humans. Indeed, there have been suggestions that we can now develop viable animal embryos from gametes that have been matured from germ cells in viva. It would seem extremely cruel, in a Bill designed to help infertile couples, if that technology were prevented and that research was not allowed to continue in humans in Britain. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, is right to suggest that there are many issues in the clinical use of such matured gametes. We need to do a huge amount of investigation to make certain that the chromosomes, the genes, the development and the cell biology of these cells are normal before such an embryo is put back into the uterus. There are very few countries where this kind of research is possible, and it would be shocking if, in the process of passing the Bill, it was unwittingly prevented in a country that is most able to do it. It is essential that this research continues. There is another issue. There are situations where we use primary germ cells and other cells without the intention of doing in vitro fertilization or any infertility treatment. In my own laboratory we are trying to modify the male stem cells of pigs. We are doing it so that we will eventually, we hope, be able to transplant pig organs into the human safely without the pigs’ cell-surface proteins being recognised by the human system. As Members of the Committee will appreciate, a large number of people need heart transplants or other organ transplantation. This technology, which is the focus of the spin-out company to which I referred, is one example of where we could prevent such recognition. If we can develop this technology in the pig, important issues surrounding use of the same kind of technology in humans will arise—not to modify humans but to understand the science of germ-cell development, so that in future we might be able, for example, to treat male infertility much better by encouraging primary germ cells to go through better maturation to arrive at gametes. The problem with the Government’s proposed legislation is that research into human tissue would be difficult and would need a licence. I do not think that a licence should be required because there is no intention to produce a pregnancy, simply an intention to understand the cell biology. Any use of these gametes would thereafter of course be subject to law—as they should be—under the Government’s proposals. There is a risk of unwitting restriction which could prevent and inhibit research that is quite properly required and is not threatening. I do not believe that any member of the public, even those with fairly strong religious convictions, would see this as a problem. The issue is not much more than one affecting the use of human tissue. I therefore hope that the Government will look favourably on the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Patel.