Search Results for: Jacob Hanna

Stem cell research ethics topics: organoid consciousness & embryo models

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brain organoids sm

Someday could human brain organoids get to the point of having organized human-like thoughts? Even consciousness? The more time passes, the less likely I think this is. It’s not impossible, but brain organoids have big limitations in that regard. To be clear, I don’t mean brain organoids having some vaguely human brain-like electrical activity. Even monolayers of […]

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Risks rise as ISSCR drops strict 14-day rule on human embryo growth in the lab

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mouse embryos grown outside the lab

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

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When does a human embryo model become the real thing & other tough questions for a new field

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human embryo model mukul tewary sm

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

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Weekly reads: embryo pubs stir things up, organoids crying, & more

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organoids tear glands sm

This was an unusual week in that three papers in a sense collided together related to embryo production and growth, raising new research possibilities but also serious ethical questions. New research: what is an embryo & what is not? The first two Nature papers reported generating the most realistic models of human embryos from scratch

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Are babies from same-sex couples possible?

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IPS-cell-cloning

A question that has come up with advances in stem cell technology: could same-sex couples have their own biological children? Since Shinya Yamanaka reprogrammed first mouse and then human ordinary cells into powerful pluripotent stem cells, termed induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, back in 2006-2007 many new research avenues have opened up. The impossible suddenly

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TGIF: Biomedical weekend reading includes some cool papers

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TGIF: I’m working on an R01, but I still try to find time to read a wide variety of papers. Below are the science pubs that I’m hoping to get to this weekend. Less Myc, longer “health span” Cell paper from Sedivy Lab. ESC Histone H3.3 nucleosomal functions Epigenetics & Chromatin paper from Keji Zhao Lab. Human

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PubPeer “Stem Cell Shoot Out” & STAP 2.0 Clarification

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Hanna-pubpeer

A heated series of discussions on stem cell publications is ongoing on the Post-publication review (post-pub) website, PubPeer, which has been called by a PubPeer user “The stem cell shoot out“. This “shoot out” goes well beyond the one page on PubPeer. It is notable to see that the authors of the papers that are the

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