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Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Stem Cell Research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stem Cell Research. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Growing brains in labs: why it's time for an ethical debate

Ian Sample
The Guardian
Originally published April 24, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

The call for debate has been prompted by a raft of studies in which scientists have made “brain organoids”, or lumps of human brain from stem cells; grown bits of human brain in rodents; and kept slivers of human brain alive for weeks after surgeons have removed the tissue from patients. Though it does not indicate consciousness, in one case, scientists recorded a surge of electrical activity from a ball of brain and retinal cells when they shined a light on it.

The research is driven by a need to understand how the brain works and how it fails in neurological disorders and mental illness. Brain organoids have already been used to study autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia and the unusually small brain size seen in some babies infected with Zika virus in the womb.

“This research is essential to alleviate human suffering. It would be unethical to halt the work,” said Nita Farahany, professor of law and philosophy at Duke University in North Carolina. “What we want is a discussion about how to enable responsible progress in the field.”

The article is here.

Monday, October 30, 2017

Human Gene Editing Marches On

bioethics.net
Originally published October 6, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

In all three cases, the main biologic approach, and the main ethical issues, are the same.  The main differences were which genes were being edited, and how the embryos were obtained.

This prompted Nature to run an editorial to say that it is “time to take stock” of the ethics of this research.  Read the editorial here.  The key points:  This is important work that should be undertaken thoughtfully.  Accordingly, donors of any embryos or cells should be fully informed of the planned research.  Only as many embryos should be created as are necessary to do the research.  Work on embryos should be preceded by work on pluripotent, or “reprogrammed,” stem cells, and if questions can be fully answered by work with those cells, then it may not be necessary to repeat the studies on whole, intact human embryos, and if that is not necessary, perhaps it should not be done.  Finally, everything should be peer reviewed.

I agree that editing work in non-totipotent cells should be at all times favored over work on intact embryos, but if one holds that an embryo is a human being that should have the benefits of protections afforded human research subjects, then Nature’s ethical principles are rather thin, little more than an extension of animal use provisions for studies in which early humans are the raw materials for the development of new medical treatments.

The article is here.

Monday, October 9, 2017

Artificial Human Embryos Are Coming, and No One Knows How to Handle Them

Antonio Regalado
MIT Tech Review
September 19, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

Scientists at Michigan now have plans to manufacture embryoids by the hundreds. These could be used to screen drugs to see which cause birth defects, find others to increase the chance of pregnancy, or to create starting material for lab-generated organs. But ethical and political quarrels may not be far behind. “This is a hot new frontier in both science and bioethics. And it seems likely to remain contested for the coming years,” says Jonathan Kimmelman, a member of the bioethics unit at McGill University, in Montreal, and a leader of an international organization of stem-cell scientists.

What’s really growing in the dish? There no easy answer to that. In fact, no one is even sure what to call these new entities. In March, a team from Harvard University offered the catch-all “synthetic human entities with embryo-like features,” or SHEEFS, in a paper cautioning that “many new varieties” are on the horizon, including realistic mini-brains.

Shao, who is continuing his training at MIT, dug into the ethics question and came to his own conclusions. “Very early on in our research we started to pay attention to why are we doing this? Is it really necessary? We decided yes, we are trying to grow a structure similar to part of the human early embryo that is hard otherwise to study,” says Shao. “But we are not going to generate a complete human embryo. I can’t just consider my feelings. I have to think about society.”

The article is here.

Friday, January 18, 2013

U.S. high court won't review federal embryonic stem cell funds

By Terry Baynes
Reuters
Originally posted on January 7, 2013

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to review a challenge to federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research brought by two researchers who said the U.S. National Institutes of Health rules on such studies violate federal law.

The decision brings an end to a lawsuit that had threatened to hamper stem cell research after a district court judge blocked the taxpayer funding in 2010. But some observers expected the Supreme Court would decline the take the case after an appeals court ruled that the funding could continue.

U.S. law prohibits the NIH from funding the creation of human embryos for research or research in which human embryos are destroyed, but leaves room for debate over whether that includes work with human embryonic stem cells.

Opponents of such research, including many religious conservatives, have argued that it is unacceptable because it destroys human embryos.

Scientists hope to be able to use stem cells to find treatments for spinal cord injuries, cancer, diabetes and diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

The entire story is here.