Limit on Lab-Grown Human Embryos Dropped by Stem Cell Body

[Emily]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/limit-on-lab-grown-human-embryos-dropped-by-stem-cell-body/

Policy & Ethics
Limit on Lab-Grown Human Embryos Dropped by Stem Cell Body

The International Society for Stem Cell Research relaxed the famous 14-day rule on culturing human embryos in its latest research guidelines

• By Nidhi Subbaraman, Nature magazine on May 27, 2021
• The international body representing stem-cell scientists has torn up a decades-old limit on the length of time that scientists should grow human embryos in the lab, giving more leeway to researchers who are studying human development and disease.
  
  Previously, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) recommended that scientists culture human embryos for no more than two weeks after fertilization. But on 26 May, the society said it was relaxing this famous limit, known as the ‘14-day rule’. Rather than replace or extend the limit, the ISSCR now suggests that studies proposing to grow human embryos beyond the two-week mark be considered on a case-by-case basis, and be subjected to several phases of review to determine at what point the experiments must be stopped...

[Emily]

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26308894

Ex Utero
EMILY K. WILSON

Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Vol. 88, No. 1 (Spring 2014), pp. 132-160 (29 pages)
Published By: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Abstract
Between 1932 and 1963 University of Pittsburgh anatomist Davenport Hooker, Ph.D., performed and filmed noninvasive studies of reflexive movement on more than 150 surgically aborted human fetuses. The resulting imagery and information would contribute substantially to new visual and biomedical conceptions of fetuses as baby-like, autonomous human entities that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Hooker's methods, though broadly conforming to contemporary research practices and views of fetuses, would not have been feasible later. But while Hooker and the 1930s medical and general public viewed live fetuses as acceptable materials for nontherapeutic research, they also shared a regard for fetuses as developing humans with some degree of social value. Hooker's research and the various reactions to his work demonstrate the varied and changing perspectives on fetuses and fetal experimentation, and the influence those views can have on biomedical research.