Spiritual Forum

Last week, a group of researchers at the Sun Yat-sen University in China revealed they have created the first genetically modified human embryo. Strong reactions are expected.

Recently, the scientific community has expressed concerns regarding the use of genome-editing tools to modify human DNA, reports Nature:

There are grave concerns regarding the ethical and safety implications of this research. There is also fear of the negative impact it could have on important work involving the use of genome-editing techniques in somatic (non-reproductive) cells.”

A mere weeks after the above report was published, a team of Chinese scientists broke the news that they’ve successfully edited certain portions in the DNA of a human embryo. We should point out that they only used non-viable tripronuclear embryos from IVF clinics for the experiment.

A tripronuclear human embryo is the result of an egg being fertilized by two sperm cells and cannot develop into a viable fetus.

The reason behind using tripronuclear embryos is simple: to avoid the ethical backlash that would follow any genetic endeavor that is centered on human experiments.

Despite the expected resentment from the general public, the Chinese scientists’ motivation is commendable. Their experiment was aimed at altering a mutant portion of DNA that caused beta thalassemia, a genetic blood disease that affects 1 in every 100,000 people.

The procedure involved using a targeted “molecular scissors” that would simply cut the mutated DNA segment and replace it with a healthy one. This technique has the potential to prevent the development of most genetic disorders in human fetuses.

However, the scientists encountered a serious drawback as the “editing” process failed multiple times. This incident enforces the idea that the road towards feasible human genetic modifications will be rough and unpredictable.

Just like the rest of us, members of the scientific community expressed contrasting opinions regarding this controversial experiment. On one side, there are those who acknowledge the immense potential this procedure might have in the near future. On the other, we have those who place ethics above else and warn us against playing God.

Both sides recommend that we proceed with the utmost prudence.

Please feel free to express your views on this delicate subject.

JAPANESE SCIENTISTS DEVELOP AN ARTIFICAL WOMB

Why isn’t this on the news? Because it happened in 1996. How close are we today to motherless births? Probably closer than you think.

Many would agree that the act of giving birth is one of the most fundamental human experiences but this paradigm will most likely suffer some changes in the near future. Should such a scenario unfold, it will bring about unprecedented political and social turmoil.

But the concept of ectogenesis (the development of a fetus outside of its mother’s body) is not new. The term was coined in 1924 by British scientist J.B.S. Haldane, who predicted that by 2074, 70 percent of all human pregnancies would be artificial. Despite being a visionary, Haldane couldn’t have foreseen the rapid advancement of technology during the past few decades. If he knew how fast things would evolve, his estimates wouldn’t have been so conservative.

In the mid-1990s, a team of Japanese researchers led by Dr. Yoshinori Kuwabara developed a technique called extrauterine fetal incubation (EUFI), which enabled them to suspend goat fetuses in artificial incubators containing synthetic amniotic fluid. The fetuses were kept alive by connecting catheters to the umbilical cord and supplying them with oxygenated blood and nutrients.

Kuwabara’s team managed to maintain an artificial pregnancy for three weeks before running into complications but that was nearly 20 years ago. With the medical advancements of the past two decades, how far could that period be extended?

In 2003, researchers at the Cornell University took things further and grew a mouse embryo for 17 days in a bio-engineered artificial womb. Leading the experiment was Dr. Helen Hung-Ching Liu, who described the embryo as “a well-formed, healthy mouse with eyes, legs, with a tail.”

More recently, Dr. Liu and her team managed to grow a human embryo for ten days in an artificial womb. At the moment, experiments such as this one are highly regulated and constrained by a 14-day limit. But we can safely assume that these regulations only affect public projects. As history has shown us, controversial experiments have been carried out by various government-sanctioned entities without the general public’s knowledge.

For all we know, artificially-incubated humans might be growing right now in secretive bio-engineering facilities. A disturbing prospect, but not an impossibility

Source: http://locklip.com/

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