Response to the: ISSCR Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation
“The new ISSCR guidelines provide a much welcomed framework for research that many find ethically contentious.
Genome editing, the creation of human gametes in a lab, and the creation of human/non-human chimeras raise fundamental ethical issues that scientists can no longer overlook. The ISSCR guidelines put this research front and centre, making it now impossible for scientists to ignore the important ethical issues that they face. The guidelines also show why ethics must be an integral part of the education of scientists working in these areas.
However, there is a problem with how the guidelines justify that human heritable genome editing should not be permitted at this moment in time. Their main point is that reproductive human heritable genome editing ‘raise[s] unresolved ethical issues’. This is problematic because one could use this same justification for stopping all stem cell research.”
Dr César Palacios-González, Senior Research Fellow in Practical Ethics, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford
Further Research:
Read more about the ethics of chimera, in vitro gametogenesis, and stem cell research:
Chimeras intended for human gamete production: an ethical alternative?. Reproductive biomedicine online (2017), 35(4), 387-390. [Palacios-González, César.]
Reproductive genome editing interventions are therapeutic, sometimes. Bioethics (2021). [Palacios‐González, César. ]
The regulation of mitochondrial replacement techniques around the world. Annual review of genomics and human genetics 21 (2020): 565-586. [Cohen, I. Glenn, Eli Y. Adashi, Sara Gerke, César Palacios-González, and Vardit Ravitsky]
Human dignity and the creation of human–nonhuman chimeras. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 18, no. 4 (2015): 487-499. [Palacios-González, César]
Multiplex parenting: in vitro gametogenesis and the generations to come. Journal of Medical Ethics 40, no. 11 (2014): 752-758. [Palacios-González, César, John Harris, and Giuseppe Testa]