Scientists Succeed in Creating Mouse Artificial Wombs – Discovery Institute

Photo credit: Rama, CC BY-SA 2.0 FR , via Wikimedia Commons.

Scientists in Israel have gestated mouse embryos about halfway to term outside a uterus.From theNew York Timesstory:

The mouse embryos looked perfectly normal. All their organs were developing as expected, along with their limbs and circulatory and nervous systems. Their tiny hearts were beating at a normal 170 beats per minute.

But these embryos were not growing in a mother mouse. They were developed inside an artificial uterus, the first time such a feat has been accomplished, scientists reported on Wednesday.

The experiments, at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, were meant to help scientists understand how mammals develop and how gene mutations, nutrients and environmental conditions may affect the fetus.

This technology is still a long time from the potential for human application, but it presents issues we need to addressnow rather than wait until it is too late to keep within proper ethical parameters.

Among the issues society needs to ponder:

In any event, this is important and portentous research that, like most biotechnologies, can lead to the best and worst of worlds simultaneously. The time to create internationally binding regulations on human research in this and other biotechnologies such as CRISPR genetic engineering, three-parent embryos, human cloning, etc. cannot be put off any longer.These are the most powerful technologies in human history, even more potentially life-altering than atomic energy.

But unlike what we did and do with atomic energy, we just let things float along on the wind. Our political leadership has utterly failed in its obligations by refusing to mention, much less tackle, these difficult issues. I dont see immediate prospects for doing better, but worse, with regard to the anything goes mentality so prevalent in Big Biotech.

How does the dystopia ofBrave New Worldcome into being? This is how!

Cross-posted at The Corner.

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Scientists Succeed in Creating Mouse Artificial Wombs - Discovery Institute