Now is the time to talk about creating humans from stem cells
Culturing stem cells swabbed from a human cheek or skin can potentially create human beings, and a conversation relating to human rights and ethics should begin now before the idea becomes completely possible
A paper landed in my inbox this week with a startling premise: That soon, stem cells swabbed from human beings’ cheeks or skin could be cultured to create germ cells (sperm and eggs), and from there to create a human being.
The process, known as in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), has never been completed with cells from people. And, in fact, human and primate studies have been met with limited success. But there have been real, live mice (and more mouse embryos that were not allowed to develop) created through this process. Every indication is that human beings will soon follow.
In a paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, three researchers argue that now is the time to consider the serious cultural and ethical questions around this technology.
Eli Adashi, a professor of medical science at Brown University and an author on the paper, said that the medical benefits of the technology are clear.
“Imagine a young girl who came down with cancer, and had been subjected to chemotherapy and radiation, and recovered,” he said. “Now she’s a woman who’s contemplating [having a child,] and is infertile due to the cancer therapy. An individual like that would today require a donor egg, which is not trivial because producing an egg or recovering an egg from a woman is not as simple as recovering sperm from men.”
With IVG, there would be no need for the complicated and expensive process of retrieving a donor egg from a third person. Instead, a swab of the cheek and some time to culture in a laboratory could produce as many eggs as the woman might need.
