Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will place in the Library the journal articles reporting the results of all the experiments recommended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority for testing the safety of the maternal spindle transfer technique and the pronuclear transfer technique in the publications Scientific review of the safety and efficacy of methods to avoid mitochondrial disease through assisted conception, published in April 2011, and Scientific review of the safety and efficacy of methods to avoid mitochondrial disease through assisted conception: update, published in March 2013.

All of the publications which the Expert Panel convened by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) referred to in its 2011 and 2013 reviews are listed in the ‘evidence reviewed’ annexes of the reports. The non-confidential evidence submissions, where there are no copyright issues, are also available on the HFEA website: http://www.hfea.gov.uk/6372.html

We are advised by the HFEA that the Expert Panel’s scientific reviews do refer to both unpublished and peer reviewed published research. This has allowed the panel to take into account the very latest research on a confidential basis.

Where unpublished research was referred to in earlier reports by the Panel, it has later been published. For example, much of the work of Dr Shoukhrat Mitalipov’s group (Oregon Health & Science University) discussed with the panel in confidence was subsequently published in 2013 and 2014:

- Tachibana M et al. Towards germline gene therapy of inherited mitochondrial diseases. Nature. 2013 Jan 31;493(7434):627-31.

- Tachibana M, et al. Human embryonic stem cells derived by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Cell 2013 6;1228–1238

- Mitalipov S et al. Limitations of preimplantation genetic diagnosis for mitochondrial DNA diseases. Cell Rep. 2014 May 22;7(4):935-7.