Are small clusters of cells that make up 5-day-old human embryos equivalent to children?
Biologically and in terms of just common sense, the answer is “no.” These tiny spheres have around 100 cells and no organs. Actual people have many trillions of cells, brains, and other organs.
Alabama law on embryos may block IVF
About the only thing these microscopic embryos have in common with people is the DNA is human and the cells are human. While it is true that sometimes very early embryos can grow into people, that is not always the case. Also, they must implant into the uterus for that.
Still, there are people who believe even a one-cell human embryo is a human and some states are pushing in that direction. An Alabama court ruling that early embryos are people could put a chill both on IVF as well as some important research. Let’s start there with our weekly review of the stem cell and regenerative space.
Frozen embryos are children, Ala. high court says in unprecedented ruling, WaPo. The main effect of this ruling is that IVF and embryo research in AL may screech to a halt. Some IVF clinics there are already stopping procedures. How can you do IVF if the embryos are already considered children by your state and if any of the embryos don’t make it, you could be in legal trouble?
This news has possible implications for stem cell research too, although that seems relatively less likely. Many may not remember, but it wasn’t so long ago that federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research was illegal for a time in the US.
I generally do not comment on political issues on The Niche. However, it is interesting that the Republican Party has pushed for extreme positions that impact science and medicine, yet now after the Alabama ruling hitting IVF, leaders of the party are distancing themselves from that.
More stem cell & regenerative reads
- Americord Releases Cord Blood Stem Cells for Treatment of Motor Neuron Disease, PR. I believe this is potentially a sign of trouble. Cord banks are under increasing pressure by customers and clinics to release bank cells for unproven interventions. From Americord, “We are immensely proud to play a role in facilitating treatments for our clients,” said Martin Smithmyer, Co-CEO and Founder of Americord. “This milestone underscores the transformative potential of cord blood stem cells.” But there is no conclusive evidence that cord cells can treat motor neuron diseases. Should banks release cells for unproven uses?
- The future of precision cancer therapy might be to try everything, Nature News. It’s a little bit of a funny headline because precision implies knowing narrowly what to do in advance but with cultured cancer cells you can try many things in the lab.
- Genomic data in the All of Us Research Program, Nature. Remember when there was just one sequenced human genome? I’m still not sure if that was just one person or an assembly from a few people. It wasn’t even really complete because of issues sequencing certain difficult regions like telomeres and centromeres. Now look at the scale of the data and diversity in this new paper, “Here we describe the programme’s genomics data release of 245,388 clinical-grade genome sequences. This resource is uniquely diverse. “77% of participants are from communities that are historically under-represented in biomedical research and 46% are individuals from under-represented racial and ethnic minorities.”
- Stem cell migration drives lung repair in living mice, Developmental Cell.
- Generation of complex bone marrow organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells, Nat. Methods.
- South Korean scientists invent beef-infused rice with cow cells, Yahoo News. So this opens the door to beef sushi?
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- Source: https://ipscell.com/2024/02/weekly-reads-al-embryos-ruling-blasting-cancer-marrow-organoids-beef-inside-rice-plants/