The HFEA held the meeting in Central London on Tuesday night as part of an ongoing consultation with the general public to assess their level of support for the creation of human-animal embryos.
The consultation follows an application to the HFEA from the University of Newcastle for a licence to begin research on the creation of human-animal embryos and their stem cells.
The meeting was hosted by Nick Ross, TV presenter and Director and Trustee of the UK Stem Cell Foundation. Panel members included Dr Lyle Armstrong, lecturer in Stem Cell Biology at the University of Newcastle, Christians in Science member the Rev Dr Stephen Bellamy, Vicar of St James' Church Birkdale, in Southport, and John Cornwell, Director of the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge.
Dr Armstrong's research group at the University of Newcastle is proposing to create human-animal embryos by combining the nucleus - which contains the genetic material - of a human being with the egg of an animal, such as a cow.
Supporters of the research said it could help bring about a breakthrough in ongoing research into cures for conditions such as motoneurone disease and Parkinson's disease.
"As a society we need to have a clear consensus about how far forward we go with this," said Mr Ross.
Dr Armstrong stressed that there could be no certain outcomes from research into stem cells from human-animal embryos. He maintained, however, that it was still necessary to use those cells to work out in a laboratory environment what problems are occurring in cells to cause conditions such as Parkinson's and establish whether therapeutic cures for major illnesses could in fact be developed from the hybrid embryo stem cells.
