This Fluid-Filled Bag Lets Lambs Develop Outside the Womb. Humans Are Next.

Futurism.com  Jolene Creighton  April 26, 2017

Physicians at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia worked with 23 week-old lambs to in order test a synthetic device that imitates a woman’s uterus, hoping to limit mortality and disease in premature children that are born before 37 weeks

Unproven Stem Cell ‘Therapy’ Blinds Three Patients at Florida Clinic

Science Daily  March 15, 2017  Stanford University Medical Center

Jeffrey Goldberg and his colleagues examined the cases of three women who were blinded after undergoing an unproven stem cell treatment for macular degeneration.

Credit: Norbert von der Groeben

Three people with macular degeneration were blinded after undergoing an unproven stem cell treatment that was touted as a clinical trial in 2015 at a clinic in Florida. Within a week following the treatment, the patients experienced

Is the 14-day Limit on Growing Embryos Out of Date?

BioEdge April 3, 2017  Michael Cook

Both in the US and UK, growing human embryos more than 14 days in a laboratory is banned. Recent developments suggest that it may be possible to grow them for longer and a number of scientists are lobbying to extend the limit. They contend that the limit is out-of-date and too restrictive.

But what if they could create embryo-like structures without creating complete embryos? This possibility is completely unregulated.…

Dutch Health Council Authorizes the Creation of Human Embryos for Research

BioEdge  April 3, 2017  Xavier Symons

The Dutch Health Council (Gezondheidsraad) has recommended that scientists be allowed to create embryos specifically for research purposes, in a move that will pave the way for embryo gene editing research in the Netherlands.

In a report submitted Tuesday to Minister for Health Edith Schippers, the Health Council recommended that the government abandon the current regulations that only allow research scientists to use embryos left over from procedures such …

A Yellow Light for Embryo Editing

Jocelyn Kaiser Science Feb 17,2017

Editing the DNA of a human embryo to prevent a disease in a baby could be ethically allowable one day—but only in rare circumstances and with safeguards in place, says a widely anticipated report released today.

The report from an international committee convened by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Medicine in Washington, D.C., concludes that such a clinical trial “might be permitted, but …

Human Adult Stem Cells (iPS) Have Been Found to be Most Clinically Useful Human Cells for Therapeutic Purposes

Justo Aznar Bioethics Observatory Catholic University of Valencia

Human adult stem cells (iPS) have been found to be most clinically useful human cells for therapeutic purposes.

Pluripotent cells (PCs) are defined as those from which cells of different tissue types can be obtained. These can be obtained either from preimplantation human embryonic cells, in which case pluripotent embryonic stem cells are obtained, or from somatic (adult) cells that can be reprogrammed to a state of …

The Ethical Dilemma of Designer Babies

Genetically modified people is no longer a science fiction fantasy; it’s a likely future scenario. Biologist Paul Knoepfler estimates that within fifteen years, scientists could use the gene editing technology CRISPR to make certain “upgrades” to human embryos — from altering physical appearances to eliminating the risk of auto-immune diseases. In this thought-provoking talk, Knoepfler readies us for the coming designer baby revolution and its very personal, and unforeseeable, consequences.…

Ethicists Advise Caution in Applying CRISPR Gene Editing to Humans

February 14, 2017  By Joel Achenbach  The Washington Post

Ethicists have been working overtime to figure out how to handle CRISPR, the revolutionary gene-editing technique that could potentially prevent congenital diseases but could also be used for cosmetic enhancements and lead to permanent, heritable changes in the human species.

The latest iteration of this ongoing CRISPR debate is a report published Tuesday by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. The …

Scientists Can Now Grow a Beating Human Heart from Stem Cells

Indy100.com   by Louis Dore in tech  January 2017

A team of scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School have used adult skin cells to regenerate functional human heart tissue.

The study, published in the journal Circulation Research, detailed that the team took adult skin cells, using a technique called messenger RNA to turn them into pluripotent stem cells, before inducing them to become two different types of cardiac cells.

Then for two weeks …

Sperm and Eggs Grown in a Petri Dish Could Revolutionise Reproduction

Michael Cook  BioEdge  Jan 14, 2017

The imminent arrival of eggs and sperm grown from skin cells makes legislative change imperative, three Ivy League professors argue in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

IVF was a game-changing technology, write Glenn Cohen, of Harvard Law School, George Q. Daley, of Harvard Medical School, and Eli Y. Adashi, of Brown University, but IVG – in vitro gametogenesis – could revolutionise reproduction.

Although at the moment IVG has …