This could be a major game changer if approved! I have blogged e.g. here before about one of the possible future consequences of this research, i.e. women would not have to be pregnant anymore and give birth to new human life.
"In 2016, [a researcher] grew human embryos in a lab dish for longer than anyone had before. ... breaking all prior records. The embryos even attached to the dish as if it were a uterus, sprouting a few placental cells. But on day 13, [the researchers] halted the experiment. ...
For the last 40 years, the [14-day rule for in vitro embryo research], which is law in some countries and a guideline in others, has served as an important stop sign for embryonic research. The 14-day limit arose after the birth of the first test-tube babies in the 1970s. It has provided a clear signal to the public that scientists wouldn’t grow babies in labs. ... Now, however, a key scientific body [International Society for Stem Cell Research] is ready to do away with the 14-day limit. The action would come at a time when scientists are making remarkable progress in growing embryonic cells and watching them develop. Researchers, for example, can now create embryo-like structures starting even from stem cells, and some hope to follow these synthetic embryo models well past the old two-week line.
For the last 40 years, the [14-day rule for in vitro embryo research], which is law in some countries and a guideline in others, has served as an important stop sign for embryonic research. The 14-day limit arose after the birth of the first test-tube babies in the 1970s. It has provided a clear signal to the public that scientists wouldn’t grow babies in labs. ... Now, however, a key scientific body [International Society for Stem Cell Research] is ready to do away with the 14-day limit. The action would come at a time when scientists are making remarkable progress in growing embryonic cells and watching them develop. Researchers, for example, can now create embryo-like structures starting even from stem cells, and some hope to follow these synthetic embryo models well past the old two-week line.
By allowing both normal and artificial embryos to continue developing after two weeks, the end of the self-imposed limit could unleash impressive but ethically charged new experiments on extending human development outside the womb. ...
Because embryo research doesn’t receive federal funding in the US, and laws differ widely around the world, the ISSCR has taken on outsize importance as the field’s de facto ethics regulator. ...
But such techniques raise the possibility of someday gestating animals outside the womb until birth, a concept called ectogenesis."
Because embryo research doesn’t receive federal funding in the US, and laws differ widely around the world, the ISSCR has taken on outsize importance as the field’s de facto ethics regulator. ...
But such techniques raise the possibility of someday gestating animals outside the womb until birth, a concept called ectogenesis."
Here is the link to the official announcement by ISSCR:
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