Item Details

title

HOW TO CONDUCT ETHICAL RESEARCH ON SHEEFS: BIOLOGICAL BACKGROUND, THE CLASSIFICATION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GUIDELINE DEVELOPMENT ON THESE NEW SYNTHETIC EMBRYOS

author

Rao, Hridya Chowduri

abstract

New forms of Human Cell Culture Models are able to recapitulate human embryogenesis for up to 14 days of culturing in laboratory conditions. And with this advent, there is a potential in these developmental technologies to provide new types of systems for drug testing, stem cell technologies, and regenerative medicine, to name a few applications. Since these synthetic embryos (also known as, synthetic human entities with embryo-like features or SHEEFs) are able to present features of a human embryo around the same time, should they be considered human embryos or be subject to embryo regulations? SHEEFs, when created in laboratory by abiding by guidelines formed by international committees like the ISSCR (International Society for Stem Cell Research), or by following the recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine (NASEM) on human embryonic stem cells, have the potential to be effectively used as a suitable replacement for animal models, or embryo-destructive research. But, at the same time, using SHEEFs unethically, to implant them in animals, or create chimeras in laboratory conditions in combination with animal extra-embryonic tissues, pose an ethical impasse. Development of proper guidelines on the creation and use of these human embryonic cell culture models is necessary to offer research scientists a clear set of rules and to remove confusion regarding research on them. This thesis is an attempt to categorize SHEEFs, discuss their developmental potential, and by envisioning some future applications, devise a set of recommendations that will help form the regulations.

subject

14-day rule

embryos

hESCs

human cell-culture models

SHEEFs

synthetic embryos

contributor

Iltis, Ana S (committee chair)

King, Nancy MP (committee member)

Robeson, Richard (committee member)

date

2019-05-24T08:35:42Z (accessioned)

2019-05-24T08:35:42Z (available)

2019 (issued)

degree

Bioethics (discipline)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/93944 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

type

Thesis