The British firm that cloned Dolly the sheep has inserted the DNA of a Danish woman into thousands of New Zealand sheep without her knowledge. PPL Therapeutics is refusing to disclose her name, but it has admitted the DNA probably came from a blood sample she gave in a clinic in the Eighties when she was 22. She has never been told what her DNA has been used for.
The company hopes to make profits by extracting a protein from the genetically modified sheep's milk which it claims might help cure diseases such as cystic fibrosis.
But the disclosure that a firm could use the woman's DNA without her knowledge, in the week that the human genome was unravelled, has led to calls for tighter controls on the biotech industry.
Dr Sue Mayer, director of GeneWatch, said: 'People give blood and organs thinking they will be shared freely with other people. They are given as a gift. Certainly most donors do not think their DNA will be patented, inserted into animals or bacteria and used to boost the profits of some company. Many people would find this morally objectionable.'
The Department of Health has admitted that DNA taken from blood or tissue banks in Britain can also be used by universities and biotech companies for genetic experiments as long as the donor is unidentified.
Professor Sandy McCall-Smith, vice-chairman of the Government's Human Genetics Commission, said: 'There need to be very clear guidelines on how human DNA is stored and used by industry.'
The Medical Research Council is reviewing its guidelines governing how human tissue can be used for experiments and McCall-Smith backed plans to ensure that donors have full knowledge of what their body parts, including their DNA, will be used for.
PPL denied it has acted improperly. Research director Alan Colman said: 'I would be proud if it was my DNA being used. The samples were taken in the Eighties when there were few guidelines. There is absolutely no question of this lady being deceived. We got the DNA through a research council and the anonymous sample came from a gene bank used by many research institutes.'
PPL was forced to reveal the source of the human DNA they had inserted into the sheep, after rumours began circulating in New Zealand that the DNA had come from the local Maori community.
There has been fierce opposition to PPL's experiments with genetically modified sheep in New Zealand. Environmental groups fear if the animals escape, they could breed with other local animals and are concerned that 'the proteins could change in unexpected ways and become infectious'.
Many in the local Maori community have been opposed to the flocks of genetically modified sheep which they find culturally offensive, believing that the 'bridge between human and non-human species should not be crossed'.
The local Raukawa tribe has insisted that if the project is abandoned at some point in the future, a ritual cleansing ceremony of the area should take place.
The sheep have been modified with copies of human genes from the Danish woman to produce the human protein alpha-1-antitrypsin (hAAT). PPL says this protein, which is extracted from the ewes' milk, could theoretically be used to treat acute respiratory problems and cystic fibrosis.
Last year PPL won permis sion from New Zealand's environment regulator to increase its flock to up to 10,000 sheep on two farms. PPL began inserting the Danish woman's DNA in sheep in the early Nineties. It began with a flock of 100 in 1996, having imported semen collected at its sperm donor clinics in Scotland.
PPL is the commercial arm of the Scottish-based Roslin Institute and another British scientist from this Institute is causing controversy in New Zealand with genetic experiments.
David Wells has set up a 'clone' farm on the North island for a government agency where synthetic human genes are inserted into cloned Friesian heifers.
The result is that each heifer contains a synthetic form of the human MBP gene which in humans enables the body to produce the protein myelin, absent or weak in cases of multiple sclerosis.
These heifers' female offspring produce milk containing myelin. This could prove a useful in the treatment of MS.
Email Anthony Barnett
