GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: The emerging technology of ‘synthetic embryology’

domingo, 15 de octubre de 2017

BioEdge: The emerging technology of ‘synthetic embryology’

BioEdge: The emerging technology of ‘synthetic embryology’

Bioedge

The emerging technology of ‘synthetic embryology’

by Michael Cook | 14 Oct 2017 | 2 comments

Although experimentation on human embryos is tightly controlled in the United States. American scientists may have found a way around this restriction. According to the MIT Technology Review, some scientists are creating embryo-like structures from stem cells.

Journalist Antonio Regalado says that there is a boom in “organoid” research. Stem cells are being used to create “clumps of cells that increasingly resemble bits of brain, lungs, or intestine” or even embryos. This emerging technology has been dubbed “synthetic embryology”.

Research on true embryos is enmeshed in America’s bitter disputes over abortion and is largely limited to surplus embryos from IVF clinics. This new technology will allow scientists to investigate embryo development and test drugs without overstepping any legal limits. Regalado writes”

Scientists at Michigan now have plans to manufacture embryoids by the hundreds. These could be used to screen drugs to see which cause birth defects, find others to increase the chance of pregnancy, or to create starting material for lab-generated organs. But ethical and political quarrels may not be far behind. “This is a hot new frontier in both science and bioethics. And it seems likely to remain contested for the coming years,” says Jonathan Kimmelman, a member of the bioethics unit at McGill University, in Montreal, and a leader of an international organization of stem-cell scientists.

At the moment, scientists are observing a 14-day limit; any embryos must be destroyed before 14 days. But this has always been an arbitrary constraint and some scientists complain if that if “synthetic embryos” are not embryos, they should be allowed to drop the time limit.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

During his campaign, President Trump promised pro-life voters that he would support their agenda. And he has delivered. He reinstated the Mexico City policy; he has cut funding to Planned Parenthood; he has rolledl back Obamacare's birth control mandate. And now a new strategic plan for the Department of Health and Human Services has definitely taken a pro-life turn, with references to protecting life from conception to natural death. "We are on track to seeing the most pro-life president this country has ever seen," says Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council.

Not everyone is happy about this. “This is a license to discriminate,” Susan Berke Fogel, director of reproductive health at the National Health Law Program, told Politico. “All of that language brings back all of these things that we’ve seen in the past that are just incongruous with really protecting health care and really improving people’s lives.”

What do you think?