For more than 30years, scientists have followed a rule they imposed on themselves to avoid growing a human embryo in a lab dish for more than 14 days.
Until recently, the "14-day rule" was largely academic. Scientists couldn't grow themfor that long if they wanted to.
But in 2016, two teams of researchers reached 12days, and in 2019, another group grew monkey embryos for 19 days.
These advances have spurredsome scientists to argue in two recent papersthat the 14-day rule should bemodified or dropped. There's a lot to be learned by pushing embryos out to 28 days, they say.
The regulatory committee of theInternational Society for Stem Cell Research, which lays down guidelines for the scientificfield,has been debating the issuefor months and is expected to issue its final decision this month.
Some ethicists and scientistsare concerned that revising the rule just asit becomes technologically feasible to break it is ridiculous and morally repugnant.
"If you abandoned every rule or law that inhibits you as soon as it inhibits you, we'd live in a lawless world," said Ben Hurlbut, a historian of science at Arizona State University.
And somepeople consider human embryo researchto be unethical at any stage.
"Whether 14 days, 14 months, or anywhere in between, such 'rules'remain contrivances to justify the most unethical kinds of science and to allow for the exploitation of our own vulnerable human offspring," said Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a neuroscientist and director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.
A single cell is removed from a human embryo to be used in generating embryonic stem cells for scientific research.Advanced Cell Technology via AP
Countries are free to ignore rules set by the society, but scientists for decades have generally abided by them. (In the U.S., there's no national law about the 14-day rule, though some states have their own regulations.)
Some cultures and religions believe that human life begins at conception, or that the human embryo carries a special status from conception onward. Other cultures believe that life starts later in fetal development, or even at birth.
Biologists routinely grow amphibian and mammal embryos in petri dishes, but human embryos are different.
Until about 14 days after conception, the human embryo looks likean undifferentiated blob of cells, which is one of the reasons the two week timeframemade sense, several scientists said.
Robin Lovell-Badge, who sits on the International Stem Cell Society committee that's considering overturning the rule, said scientists will take any changes seriously.
"We've stuck with that rule for over 30 years," he said.
Lovell-Badgefavors extending the limit, as long as the research is scientifically justified and has public support.
Not everyone in the scientific community shares this position.
"It's been a difficult part of the guidelines to get agreement on," Lovell-Badge said. "You have very wide-ranging views."
Some scientists argue there's a lot to be learned by pushing the 14-day rule out another two weeks.
Right now the second two weeks after fertilization is considered a "black box" because so little is known about it, said Insoo Hyun, a professor of bioethics atCase Western and Harvard universities. Heco-wrote a March 5 opinion piece arguing for a careful, stepwiseextension of the 14-day rule.
"You have to really make your case for it,"Hyun said."You have to explain what you want to do and why, have a very clear picture of where the next stopping point is."
Women generally don't know they're pregnant before 28 days, so historically, there has not been tissue from aborted or miscarried fetuses available for research.
The central nervous system, heart and other organs begin to develop during this crucial two-week period. The body plan is established. Cells that will become eggs and sperm start to form. Aspects of theplacenta are set up.
In many ways,days 14 through28 are the most interesting period of human development, Lovell-Badge said. "You can do a whole lot of incredibly valuable research," in that timeframe, he said.
And it's in that window that many things can go wrong in a pregnancy, such as miscarriage or abnormalities.
Perhaps there are treatments that could be developed to fix these problems, if they are better understood,Hyunsaid, just as pregnant women now take vitamin supplements to prevent spina bifida, in which the spine doesn't developproperly.
Do you think scientists should be allowed to grow embryos in a dish beyond 14 days? Share this story.
Developing embryos for another week "will thus illuminate this poorly understood period of our development and bring greater understanding of pregnancy loss and developmental disease,"saidMagdalenaZernicka-Goetz,theBritish scientist who developed the technique for growing human embryos for nearly two weeks.Zernicka-Goetz,author of a 2020 book on human development called "The Dance of Life,"would like to extend the 14-day rule out one week to 21 days.
"This will enable thescientiststo study a period of development that are highly susceptible to developmental failure, something that happens quite frequently in human pregnancy," she wrote in an email, stressing work should be closely regulated"to achieve these potential biomedical advances within an appropriate bi-ethical framework."
Despite their differences, most scientists seem to agreethere's no reason to push development past 28 days.
By onemonth after conception, embryonic tissue is easier to obtain and study and theorgans have formed, leaving fewer questions to answer.
"You wouldn't need to take them much beyond that point anyway," Lovell-Badgesaid.
Pacholczyk, of the Catholic Bioethics Center, said there's simply no justification for 14 days or any other time limit.
"Researchers have been feigning for a long time that the 14-day rule was somehow an ethical tenet grounded in biological facts while in reality it has been little more than a ceremonial 'line in the sand' and it should come as little surprise that they are now seeking to move that line beyond 14 days," he wrote in an email.
Even some who strongly supportscientific research are uncomfortable extending the 14-day rule.
HenryGreely, who directs the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University in California, saidthere should be a hard-stop endpointfor embryo research.
"Even though I do not personally give strong moral status to embryos, the idea of doing research on 18-day-oldhuman embryos is disturbing," said Greely, author of the new book "CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans."
This sequence of images shows the development of embryos after correcting for a genetic error that would otherwise cause a type of inherited heart disease.OHSU
"I'd like to see an endpoint that had some rationale that would make it likely to stick," he said.
Growing an embryo in a lab dish instead of a woman's womb is necessarily different, Greely said, and may not represent a "real" embryo anyway.
"Does a 14-day embryo that is not implanted deep in a woman's uterus tell us anything meaningful about a 14-day embryo that is?" he asked.
Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, a nonprofit advocacy group,said efforts to overturn the 14-day rule are another example of scientific over-reach.
"There's a real problem with scientists who are jumping ahead of the public," she said.
Scientists should not be the ones who get to decide where society's moral boundaries lie,she and Hurlbut said.
"If moves are made to usurp these questions from wider society," Hurlbut said, "it's to the detriment of democracy and to the detriment of sciencecertainly in the long run, and probably in the short run."
Contact Karen Weintraub at kweintraub@usatoday.
Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.
Published10:13 am UTC May. 2, 2021Updated10:13 am UTC May. 2, 2021
Read the original here:
- Shinobi strikes deal with electronics powerhouse Panasonic to create new cell therapy manufacturing platform - FiercePharma - April 19th, 2024
- The Stem Cells Market expected to grow at the value of USD 28.1 Billion by 2030 with a 10.48% CAGR. - WhaTech - April 19th, 2024
- Scientists produce in vitro model of cell differentiation during early facial development - Phys.org - April 19th, 2024
- Somite: AI-Based Stem Cell Therapy Company Closes $5.3 Million In Funding - Pulse 2.0 - April 19th, 2024
- Paralyzed man who can walk again shows potential benefit of stem cell therapy - ABC News - April 5th, 2024
- Stem Cells Market Innovations Investigated by Industry Overview and Global Forecast - WhaTech - April 5th, 2024
- New tool provides researchers with improved understanding of stem cell aging in the brain - University of Wisconsin-Madison - April 1st, 2024
- The PTM profiling of CTCF reveals the regulation of 3D chromatin structure by O-GlcNAcylation - Nature.com - April 1st, 2024
- Signatures of Autofluorescence Used To Study Stem Cells Aging in the Brain - Technology Networks - March 30th, 2024
- Two decades of embryonic stem cells: a historical overview - March 28th, 2024
- Researchers at Phoenix Children's First in the World to Produce Mouse Lungs in Rats - The Malaysian Reserve - March 26th, 2024
- Unlocking the mysteries of early human development through blastoid models - News-Medical.Net - March 24th, 2024
- Unlocking the Secrets of Aging: Researchers Reveal Key to Intestinal Balance - SciTechDaily - March 17th, 2024
- Human stem-cell-based therapy for Parkinson's disease proven safe PET - BioNews - March 13th, 2024
- Exploring the inner workings of stem cells: When location changes the message - Phys.org - March 9th, 2024
- Confronting IVF: Human Embryos Are Persons With a Right to Life - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence - March 7th, 2024
- When Location Changes the Message - UConn Today - University of Connecticut - March 7th, 2024
- Distinct pathways drive anterior hypoblast specification in the implanting human embryo - Nature.com - March 6th, 2024
- In light of the Alabama court ruling, a look at the science of IVF : Short Wave - NPR - March 3rd, 2024
- The weird way Alabamas embryo ruling takes on artificial wombs - MIT Technology Review - February 25th, 2024
- Alabama's biggest hospital to suspend transfer of embryos after court ruling - ABC News - February 24th, 2024
- Stem Cells: FAQs Answered for Patients and Caregivers - Corporate Wellness Magazine - February 22nd, 2024
- Charles River Collaborates with Pluristyx, Expanding its Portfolio of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells - Business Wire - February 22nd, 2024
- Breakthrough Stem Cell Treatments for Stroke Recovery: What You Need to Know - Medical Tourism Magazine - February 20th, 2024
- Global Cell Isolation Market Size To Worth USD 13.4 Billion By 2033 | CAGR of 12.5% - Yahoo Finance - February 20th, 2024
- The Mechanism of Positional Cues in Embryonic Development and Signaling Molecules in Cell Fate - Medriva - February 18th, 2024
- Regeneration of the Retina Using Pluripotent Stem Cells: A Comprehensive Review - Cureus - February 5th, 2024
- CRISPR/Cas9-mediated deletion of a GA-repeat in human GPM6B leads to disruption of neural cell differentiation from ... - Nature.com - January 29th, 2024
- Global Human Embryonic Stem Cell Market Analysis 2024-2034: A Deep Dive into Applications, End-users, and ... - GlobeNewswire - January 26th, 2024
- No, Rep. Steve Scalise Didn't Vote Against Stem Cell Research From Which He Is Now Benefiting - Yahoo News - January 14th, 2024
- Clinical applications of stem cell-derived exosomes | Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy - Nature.com - January 12th, 2024
- How Stem Cell Embryo Models Won Method of the Year - Technology Networks - January 12th, 2024
- Changing the public perception of human embryology - ESHRE - January 11th, 2024
- How the Human Body Regenerates New Cells Every Year - Laughing Squid - January 4th, 2024
- Lab-grown models of embryos increasingly resemble the real thing | Mint - Mint - January 4th, 2024
- Singapore should ban reproductive applications of synthetic human embryos - BioEdge - January 4th, 2024
- Machine learning-based estimation of spatial gene expression pattern during ESC-derived retinal organoid ... - Nature.com - December 21st, 2023
- The development of embryos may be less shaped by genes than we thought - New Scientist - December 21st, 2023
- Embryonic stem cell - Wikipedia - December 13th, 2023
- Researchers discover a mechanism that controls the identity of stem cells - Phys.org - December 9th, 2023
- 'Fascinating and completely unexpected': Tiny robots fix neurons - FierceBiotech - December 5th, 2023
- Establishment and characterization of matched immortalized human ... - Nature.com - December 5th, 2023
- Proteomic insights into the associations between obesity, lifestyle ... - BMC Medicine - December 5th, 2023
- New therapy can treat rare and hereditary diseases - ScienceNorway - December 5th, 2023
- Scientists Still Can't Be Trusted on Gene Editing - Progressive.org - December 5th, 2023
- Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology and Renowned ... - Yahoo Finance - December 5th, 2023
- 4.4 Million Funding Injection Fuels World-Class Bioscience Research Programme - India Education Diary - December 3rd, 2023
- A two-kinesin mechanism controls neurogenesis in the developing ... - Nature.com - December 3rd, 2023
- What happens when nature and cities collide - CNN - December 3rd, 2023
- Pro-Life This Week: December 1, 2023 | ALL - All.org - December 3rd, 2023
- A look at the international race to create human eggs and sperm in ... - NPR - December 1st, 2023
- Synthetic genetic circuits to uncover the OCT4 trajectories of ... - Science - December 1st, 2023
- Why the Novo Nordisk Foundation is betting big on stem cells - pharmaphorum - November 29th, 2023
- Charity Watchlist Helps Donors Ensure Their Year-End Gifts Don't ... - All.org - November 29th, 2023
- A green glowing monkey has been created in China. What were the ... - Genetic Literacy Project - November 29th, 2023
- Fetal Bovine Serum Market to reach USD 1.26 Bn by 2029, emerging at a CAGR of 5.3 percent according to a ne... - WhaTech Technology and Markets News - November 29th, 2023
- Implications of Gene Therapy in Dentistry and Periodontics: A ... - Cureus - November 27th, 2023
- Study shows how to treat hereditary, rare diseases - ETHealthWorld - November 27th, 2023
- Drugs identified that may reverse brain fog caused by COVID-19 - New Atlas - November 27th, 2023
- The genes that made us truly human may also make us ill - BBC.com - November 25th, 2023
- Therapy to treat rare, hereditary diseases: Study - Hindustan Times - November 25th, 2023
- How the growth of a giant single cell is intertwined with daily self-rhythms - Phys.org - November 25th, 2023
- On this day: Mahmoud Abbas becomes leader of Fatah in 2004 - In-Cyprus - November 25th, 2023
- Evaluation of A-ring hydroxymethylene-amino- triterpenoids as ... - Nature.com - November 25th, 2023
- Disruption of the autism gene and chromatin regulator KDM5A alters ... - Science - November 23rd, 2023
- Scientists Created a Monkey With Two Different Sets of DNA - Smithsonian Magazine - November 23rd, 2023
- Genomic tug of war could boost cancer therapy - Science Daily - November 23rd, 2023
- What are stem cells? Throw light on various types of stem cells and ... - Insights IAS - November 23rd, 2023
- The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation awards $10.5 million to new ... - EurekAlert - November 23rd, 2023
- Daily briefing: Why these PhD scientists went into teaching - Nature.com - November 23rd, 2023
- Innovative Therapy Targets Rare, Hereditary Diseases - Mirage News - November 23rd, 2023
- Scientists uncover "genomic tug of war" that influences ... - News-Medical.Net - November 21st, 2023
- DOT1L is a barrier to histone acetylation during reprogramming to ... - Science - November 21st, 2023
- Tumor microenvironment composition & related therapy in HCC | JHC - Dove Medical Press - November 21st, 2023
- T-Therapeutics raises $59M in series A for T-cell receptors - BioWorld Online - November 19th, 2023
- A $3bn bet on finding the fountain of youth | Mint - Mint - November 19th, 2023
- A better way to study Parkinson's disease in the lab could lead to ... - EurekAlert - November 17th, 2023
- Global Stem Cell Therapy Market to Reach USD 928.6 Million by ... - GlobeNewswire - November 17th, 2023
- MKL/SRF and Bcl6 mutual transcriptional repression safeguards the ... - Science - November 17th, 2023
- METTL1-Related Genes and Immune Characteristics in SLE | JIR - Dove Medical Press - November 17th, 2023
Recent Comments