The Cystic Fibrosis Trust supports the use of medical and scientific embryo research which involves the mixing, for research purposes only, of human and animal cells and DNA. Whilst the Cystic Fibrosis Trust sees no immediate research possibilities in this area, we do recognise the important potential benefit to human health from being able to grow stem cells with specific genetic abnormalities, such as Cystic Fibrosis, improving the efficiency of therapeutic cloning techniques and establishing cell lines for the testing of new treatment. We further recognise that the use of human eggs is controversial and, in any event, human eggs are in very short supply and needed for other purposes.

  We urge the HFEA to adopt a policy supportive of this sort of research subject to its own strict licensing requirements and to the usual 14 day limit which applies to human embryos.

  Sufferers, now and in the future, from medical conditions which may benefit from this type of research would be failed by this Government if this research were declared illegal.

January 2007