Creating New Life: Synthetic Embryos and Induced Stem Cells, an Interview with Dr Loder. Hannah Stainbank, City of London Freemen’s School – This is…

At Kings College London, PhD student Dr Loder is looking into the future ethical issues with induced stem cell research. She explains induced stem cells to be reprogramming cells that have already differentiated to become more juvenile, and it is effectively a way to get stem cells without destroying embryos. Induced stem cells can be made from many types of cells, for example skin cells.

As a German doctor and ethicist who has been living in the UK for 5 years, she is interested in the different national ethical backgrounds in the UK and Germany. She describes the UK as coming from a more utilitarian background, whereas Germany has a more Kantian and deontological background, with the NS-regime and the atrocities committed there having an enormous impact on how we do things and discuss things and regulate things. This difference manifests in stem cell laws, as taking stem cells from embryos is illegal in Germany, however it is legal up until the embryo is 14 days old in the UK. This means that the new ability to create stem cells from already specialised cells is incredibly important for research in Germany.

The main question that she is interested in is what can be made from these cells, and especially in the case of synthetic embryos being made. At the moment, the embryo itself can be made, however as the cells are pluripotent (instead of totipotent), the placenta cannot be made from induced stem cells, therefore the embryo cannot continue to grow. Dr Loder is looking into what the embryo actually is, and what it would be if it could continue to grow, both ethically and legally, as she questions, What is this entity? What have we created here? To whom does this entity belong? Is the regulation intact?.

One of the aims of this research is to get ahead of scientific research and consider the ethical implications of any development before it happens. This gives the scientists a safe playing field and lets them know where they are within the legal framework to allow science to progress in an ethical and legally protected way. Her research consists of interviewing lawyers, scientists, and other ethicists to get a rounded view of the implications induced stem cells may have.

One possible implication ofadvancing induced stem cell technology is that it could allowsame-sex couples to have children that are genetically related to both parents. Using the example of a lesbian couple, one woman could have her skin cells turned into induced stem cells, and then differentiated into an egg cell, and the others skin cells turned into a sperm cell, therefore the embryo could be made from these gametes. Dr Loders research is therefore incredibly valuable in allowing the ethics of induced stem cells to be fully evaluated, so that a well-informed legal framework can be set up that may allow this to be possible.

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Creating New Life: Synthetic Embryos and Induced Stem Cells, an Interview with Dr Loder. Hannah Stainbank, City of London Freemen's School - This is...