www.thecourieronline.co.uk Monday 9 February 2015 Issue 1304 Free
TAKE ME OUT All the action from the RAG charity dating show p.16
The Independent Voice of Newcastle Students
GRINDR: A USER’S GUIDE p. 33
Poly draw first blood as Stan Calvert kicks off
LOVESTRUCK
Est 1948
Can you really fall for someone after 36 questions and 4 minutes of staring? Science investigates p. 35
Full report p. 44
VC goes public with opposition to tuition fee cuts Prof. Chris Brink among 20 senior academics to sign letter against Labour plan to cap fees at £6000
Toon profs rejoice as MPs approve ‘3-parent babies’ By Antonia Cundy Last Tuesday, in a free vote in the House of Commons, MPs voted in favour (382 to 128) of a technique pioneered at Newcastle Uni which uses the DNA of 3 different people during the process of IVF. This is the first step towards legalising a technique that will allow women who carry faulty mitochondrial in their cells to give birth to healthy babies. As Prof. Doug Turnbull, professor of neurology at Newcastle Uni Medical School and lead researcher of the team which devised the technique says, “This is an important hurdle in the development of this new IVF technique, but we still have the debate in the House of Lords, and importantly the licensing by the HFEA [the UK’s independent regulator of fertility treatment and research].”
The DNA of an embryo is mainly contained in two balls of genetic information in the nucleus (one from the mother and one from the father) called pronuclei, which fuse together to create the genetic blueprint of the child. However, a very small amount of DNA is not contained in the nucleus and solely comes from the mitochondria in the mother’s egg cell. The mitochondria are tiny structures in the cell that deal with the production of energy – the cells “battery packs”. Although they only contribute 37 genes to the child’s overall DNA, compared to 22,000 genes in the chromosomes of the nucleus, and do not contribute to genetic characteristics such as personality or hair colour, they are incredibly important. Faulty mitochondrial DNA can lead to serious, and in most cases lethal, mitochondrial diseases. In an open letter to lawmakers, the U.S-based United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation
and groups from France, Germany, Spain and Britain described mitochondrial diseases as “unimaginably cruel… [they] strip our children of the skills they have learned, inflict pain that cannot be managed and tire their organs one by one until their little bodies cannot go on any more.” The new technique, called pro-nuclear transfer, has been sensationally termed by the media as ‘3-parent IVF’ due to the fact that it takes healthy mitochondrial DNA from a third party, a donor woman. Two eggs are fertilised by sperm, creating two embryos – one from the intended parents and one from the donors. The pronuclei from both embryos are removed, but only the ones from the parents’ embryo are kept. These are then transferred into the embryo from the donor with healthy mitochondria, which has had its own pronuclei removed. Continued on page 4
By Antonia Velikova News Editor Newcastle University Vice Chancellor Chris Brink was among the 20 senior academics from universities all over England to sign a letter on behalf of Universities UK opposing Labour’s proposal to reduce university fees. The academics are citing “record high” applications to universities, claiming that the number of applicants from lower socio-economic backgrounds is rising. The letter also states that a cut to the headline tuition fee would not benefit students in any way, since fees are paid back by graduates, so the proposed measure would help the highest-earning graduates. A suggestion for a better course of action has been a concentration of efforts on the Government’s behalf towards better financial support for covering living costs. Professor Brink signed the letter that warns that cuts to university budgets might reach £10bn in the next five years should the tuition fee cap drop from £9000 to £6000. Speaking to The Courier, Prof. Brink said: “Together with the other members of [Universities UK] we have always argued for a sustainable student funding system that makes going to university a realistic proposition for all students, regardless of their background and offers the best value for money.” The letter issued by Universities UK warns that the £10 billion gap which would be created in higher education funding by this move would be almost impossible to fill in the current eco-
nomic climate. Prof. Brink supported this statement: “Reducing the fees cap from £9000 to £6000 would create a £10 billion gap in funding for higher education that would need to be found from other public sources. In the current economic climate it is difficult to see how this gap would be bridged. “Reducing student numbers or cutting public funding to universities as a way to achieve this would have a serious impact on the opportunities open to young people and the quality of students’ education, as well as adversely affecting the wider work we do to benefit the economy.” In return, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said that the current system was restrictive to students from poorer backgrounds and that the “status quo” is not at all efficient. Balls has said that the introduction of £9000 tuition fees has not benefited taxpayers in any way but has, much to the contrary, resulted in a loss of funds. He has claimed that “almost half of students aren’t repaying fees because they don’t earn enough in their lifetime” and has promised “a huge looming change for taxpayers in the future.” He was, however, unable to confirm whether the new system will result in a loss of funding for universities. As an estimate, this reduction of tuition fees might cost an extra £2 billion a year. In response to Labour’s proposal, Lib Dem schools minister David Laws has said that the proposed measures are simply unaffordable.
More inside The £9000 fee cap might sound counter-intuitive, but it makes sense Comment, p. 10