Although in my years as a stem cell biologist I haven’t yet been in a leadership role at the International Society for Stem Cell Research or ISSCR, unproven stem cell clinics have claimed that I somehow speak for ISSCR. I am just a standard member of the group like thousands of other researchers. In fact, …
Recommended reads: ISSCR guidelines pushback, TB outbreak from regen product, pubs Read More »
Something called the 14-day rule on growing human embryos in the lab helped keep a tough question in check for a long time: when is it ethically wrong or just practically unwise to continue growing a human embryo for research? There is no good answer based on science or anything else. ISSCR moves beyond strict …
Risks rise as ISSCR drops strict 14-day rule on human embryo growth in the lab Read More »
A human embryo model is a laboratory-produced collection of living cells that has some key things in common with real human embryos. They are made from pluripotent stem cells, which include embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells. This research is both exciting and ethically complicated, raising some difficult questions. Embryo …
A new Cell paper from an international team led by Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte pushes human embryo chimera embryo research further than ever before. It is both exciting work and raises many complex bioethics questions at the same time. What is a human embryo chimera? By way of background, chimeric human embryos contain a mixture …
Monkey human embryo chimera Cell paper: exciting, ethically complex direction Read More »
A new word has been added to the lexicon of human stem cell research – blastoids, aka “blastocyst-like structures.” Unlike the familiar three-layered embryo that emerges during the third week of prenatal development, the earlier blastocyst resembles a fluid-filled soccer ball, with a smear of cells on the interior face destined to develop into the …
New lab-grown blastoids are strikingly similar to human embryos Read More »
Making a CRISPR baby is a controversial idea to even propose now for many reasons, yet even after He Jiankui’s train wreck some people have seemed eager to try it including apparently a scientist whose name perhaps many readers here are not so familiar with in this context: Professor Hui Yang. ‘CRISPR baby guys’ Is …
Heads up on Hui Yang, another potential aspiring CRISPR baby researcher Read More »
Michael Le Page over at The New Scientist reports on a new paper describing the birth of monkey-piglet chimeras. Unlike most such primate embryo chimeras formed in research in the past, these were allowed to be born. A litter of ten from the new monkey-pig research, two of which were chimeras, all rather quickly died …
Monkey-pig chimeras pub discouraging for similar human research toward organ transplants Read More »
By Guillaume Levrier Human germline editing has been done before. It will be done again in the future, as it is relatively easy to perform. No mechanism with the de facto ability to prevent it from being organized has yet been designed, let alone implemented. But the fact that germline editing has, can, and will …
Three national academy leaders have a new opinion piece in Science on what the community needs to do next regarding human germline editing now that we are most likely in the CRISPR babies era. Some of us have been wondering what the Academies and their empowered experts really think about this issue and what they …
Did Chinese researcher He Jiankui really CRISPR gene edit the CCR5 gene in two embryos producing twin baby girls? In my opinion the answer is “no”, but probably not for the reason you might think at first. He proclaims gene edits He claimed he had made twin baby girls with “gene edits”, which I feel is unethical …
He Jiankui didn’t really gene edit those girls; he mutated them Read More »