New Ethics Debate After Scientists Grow In-Lab Fetus Brain

After reading the headline, I had hoped it wasn't what it sounded like. My hopes were dashed and my heart sank, I think the older I get the more emotional I get. I personally do not think that scientists should be growing a brain at all. Something about this just doesn't feel right and I feel sick at my stomach. I guess a hundred years down the road if any good comes of this maybe future generations will look at it differently.

After a five-week gestation period, the small brain has even developed its own eye and spinal cord, the researcher further boasted.

As far as I am concerned that brain was alive the moment there was any activity inside of it, and it is essentially a clone of the person the stem cells were taken from.

If we were to take into consideration the current abortion rules, the lab-grown brain could be described as a living person once the 24-week threshold has been overcome. However, these rules can be easily contested should they be used for the current situation since there is no actual reference to lab-grown human organs.

I really hope they change the laws soon. I don't know, maybe I am just the old man fighting progress of "humanity" but this just doesn't sit right with me.

He will ignore all these scare tactics that prevent progress from happening and will continue to grow his fetus-like brain until it becomes 20 weeks old, the scientist has concluded.

Funny how he will stop before the 24 week threshold even though he doesn't think he is doing anything wrong. I don't think I can add much more, I guess the question I pose to you guys is a simple one. Are any of you as upset as I am about this?

Article on Lab-Fetus

An info page on the Dr.

I'm for it because Scientists could learn a lot from the brain.

Progress in medicine saves lives and cures diseases.

If the brain develops self awareness, at that point this experiment crosses the line for me. I think in our lifetime we will have organ banks where spare parts are grown to extend human life. However, growing a brain takes things too far in my humble opinion.

Well, I might be completely against it but I am open minded enough to see that progress can be made from it .. it still just doesn't feel right. I guess what it comes down to is we have to ask ourselves if we want to be the person ok with it or not, because its going to happen anyway.

a reply to: DeviantMortal

I have believed that growing disembodied organs is the solution to quality, speed of production and the ever-present ethical questions.

However, the idea of growing a nervous system connected to an intact and viable brain, stem and spine with eyes is not what I envisioned. I can't get images of Cain out of my head (no pun intended).

a reply to: greencmp

I had the same image pop into my head. Hey new question, perhaps this should have been the question I posed anyway because the ethics on this are going to be divided and I knew that before I even asked. Is this a form of cloning or custom engineered petri dish life? And on a side note, I am all for other parts of the body being grown as well. There are too many people that have their lives screwed up because of someone evil or a terrible accident.

Full Definition of CLONE


1

a : the aggregate of genetically identical cells or organisms asexually produced by a single progenitor cell or organism

b : an individual grown from a single somatic cell or cell nucleus and genetically identical to it

c : a group of replicas of all or part of a macromolecule and especially DNA

2

: one that appears to be a copy of an original form : duplicate

According to Merriam Webster this would be human cloning I think.

There was a book, Harland Ellison was the author, I believe.

The title was, "I have no mouth, and I must scream".

That's what first came to mind.

a reply to: DeviantMortal

Did you happen to check any other sources or attempt to find anything else out about this before you posted? If not, you should. It is extremely misleading to state that it is a "fetal brain". It is not any such thing. It resembles a fetal brain in structure and maturity level. It was created from adult skin cells, not fetal cells. There are no babies being used here, as the source is strongly alluding to. It is not being given any stimuli and is not capable of thought. It has no vascularity, no blood supply to feed it. It is simply a miniature model of a functioning human brain, and it is not the first attempt by researchers to create something like this.

The source you posted is deliberately written in highly inflammatory language and insinuates things that are not accurate...their first offense being the choice of words they used in their title. So is your OP; you yourself are attempting to make it sound as if he is doing experiments with fetuses; using the "24 week threshold" in a context that it does not actually mean, to cite one example. I hope the mods are monitoring this closely, because a lot of people are going to do the same thing that you did: not bother to read up on it (or ignore the truth completely) and blow it out of proportion, turning it into something that it most definitely is not.

Your twisting of the facts:

Funny how he will stop before the 24 week threshold even though he doesn't think he is doing anything wrong. I don't think I can add much more, I guess the question I pose to you guys is a simple one. Are any of you as upset as I am about this?

What is actually happening here:

It has the maturity of a 5-week-old fetal brain, and contains 99 percent of the genes in a fully developed human fetal brain.

“If we let it go to 16 or 20 weeks, that might complete it, filling in that 1 percent of missing genes," Anand said. "We don’t know yet.”

Alzheimer's and other neuro research

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists at The Ohio State University have developed a nearly complete human brain in a dish that equals the brain maturity of a 5-week-old fetus.

The brain organoid, engineered from adult human skin cells, is the most complete human brain model yet developed, said Rene Anand, professor of biological chemistry and pharmacology at Ohio State.

The lab-grown brain, about the size of a pencil eraser, has an identifiable structure and contains 99 percent of the genes present in the human fetal brain. Such a system will enable ethical and more rapid and accurate testing of experimental drugs before the clinical trial stage and advance studies of genetic and environmental causes of central nervous system disorders.

Straight from the horse's mouth

I would be really awesome if people would stop creating controversy and unnecessary drama where there should be none. There are enough lies being told on the internet already without things like this contributing to them.

a reply to: DeviantMortal

Is this a form of cloning or custom engineered petri dish life? And on a side note, I am all for other parts of the body being grown as well. There are too many people that have their lives screwed up because of someone evil or a terrible accident.

No, it is not "cloning". To clone something is to create an exact duplicate of a specific group of cells...to make a copy. This is not a "cloned" brain, nor is it a form of "life", in a petri dish or otherwise.

a reply to: tigertatzen

Thank you, that was an informative post and you did it without insulting me I see a lot of that on here LoL. (Usually when someone gets frustrated trying to explain something.) Even with the new info it doesn't feel right. So I guess it is a good thing I am not in charge of such things.

a reply to: tigertatzen

Reading over your post more it makes me feel like they made a fleshy hard drive and after a few more moments of thinking over it I guess its not as bad if the brain is not capable of "booting up" so to speak. If it is just a blank brain not capable of much more than giving us test results its not any different than growing an ear or hand which I do agree with.

a reply to: DeviantMortal

Thank you, that was an informative post and you did it without insulting me I see a lot of that on here LoL. (Usually when someone gets frustrated trying to explain something.) Even with the new info it doesn't feel right. So I guess it is a good thing I am not in charge of such things.

Lol...I am trying not to be as blunt as I normally am with people because it makes me seem harsh, when in reality, it's just the way I talk.

I can understand your discomfort, actually. Much like cloning, it has sort of a disturbing wrong feeling...hard to put into words, but it is there. It gives me an unpleasant feeling too, and I can't say precisely why. I'm torn about it because my father had Alzheimer's and I know that this will benefit others like him if it is successful, but I think it's the idea of such a thing falling into the wrong hands that may be the root of my trepidation about it. It's one thing to see something like this on an episode of The X-files or something, but quite another to see it as a reality.

a reply to: DeviantMortal

Reading over your post more it makes me feel like they made a fleshy hard drive and after a few more moments of thinking over it I guess its not as bad if the brain is not capable of "booting up" so to speak. If it is just a blank brain not capable of much more than giving us test results its not any different than growing an ear or hand which I do agree with.

That is a perfect analogy, actually. If you look at it from the standpoint of brain death in an otherwise healthy person, it makes a little more sense. People who are brain dead can be kept alive by artificial means for quite some time, but if there is no oxygenated blood supply they are not actually "alive" anymore, nor will they ever be again. The brain can do amazing things, but it cannot regenerate once tissue necrosis sets in. Lack of blood supply causes the tissue to die.

That's why it's crucial to act quickly if you suspect someone is having a stroke, and why it is imperative that CPR be started on someone immediately if they suddenly stop breathing...every second they go without oxygenated blood, more and more tissue is being destroyed. You can get them to a hospital and put them on life support, but they will never wake up or be a person ever again, because their brain is dead.

originally posted by: DeviantMortal
a reply to: tigertatzen

Reading over your post more it makes me feel like they made a fleshy hard drive and after a few more moments of thinking over it I guess its not as bad if the brain is not capable of "booting up" so to speak. If it is just a blank brain not capable of much more than giving us test results its not any different than growing an ear or hand which I do agree with.

Ofcourse no one would ever know how that brain felt about taking part in a medical experiment since the brain hasn't got a mouth or anything to express itself.

I think science should just stick to cutting up corpses and analyzing that with computers. We have all the technology to map the entire body and one day software can predict DNA no doubt. We shouldn't go down that path of growing brains in jars. I bet those brains develop and feel just the same as those in a normal environment.

a reply to: johnnyjoe1979

I bet those brains develop and feel just the same as those in a normal environment.

No, they don't. If someone were to remove your brain from your skull, would your brain still "feel"? No, it would not. Why? Because the brain would have no blood carrying oxygen to it. This pea-sized little brain is just like that: disembodied and lacking vascularity. It cannot feel anything. It cannot think anything. It is not alive. Just like your brain wouldn't be alive if someone took it out of your skull. It simply doesn't work that way.

I think science should just stick to cutting up corpses and analyzing that with computers. We have all the technology to map the entire body and one day software can predict DNA no doubt.

Science has so far been unable to go any further regarding a lot of neurological diseases. You can't get any real sense of the effect on the brain of certain disease processes by cutting up a dead brain. Computers can extrapolate when fed data, but they can only do it with data that we input. Not sure what you meant by "predict DNA", but again, any information would be limited by the knowledge of the scientists who created the computer program.