March 23, 2020
The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 has spread throughout the world with the number of cases increasing daily, both due to spread and to extended testing. We have provided links to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s websites that … Read More
August 10, 2017
Scientists have found a way to isolate human haploid embryonic stem cells. What are these cells, and do they avoid some of the ethical issues surrounding human embryonic stem cells? Several press releases have reported on the isolation of a … Read More
February 21, 2017
Even though the Zika virus did not make national headlines until November 2015 when Brazil declared a national emergency after reporting an abnormally high number of cases of babies born with microcephaly or Guillain-Barré syndrome, the virus was actually first … Read More
May 4, 2015
Framing the Issue: Private Consultants and IRBs There are some ethical issues that fall outside the purview of an Institutional Review Board (IRB). In October 2014, a Nature article described an example of clinical trial investigators who discovered incriminating information … Read More
October 14, 2014
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the largest Ebola outbreak in history. It can be traced back to a boy who died of Ebola in December; he lived in Guéckédou in southeastern Guinea, which is surrounded by Sierra Leone … Read More
September 19, 2014
Last January two articles appeared in Nature announcing a new technique for making pluripotent stem cells from mouse cells. This technique is different from the methods used by Nobel Prize winners, Shinya Yamanako and John Gordon. Their methods required turning … Read More
April 14, 2014
What Is Gene Editing? People sometimes express concerns over gene therapy, which is genetic engineering for therapeutic purposes, but what they are really concerned about is gene editing. Genetic engineering is a relatively straightforward procedure in the laboratory, and is … Read More
March 5, 2014
Craig Venter’s book Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life describes the completion of the first functioning organism with a completely synthetic genome and places this accomplishment within the context of … Read More
February 17, 2014
Note: This post is meant for educational purposes only. Please consult your doctor for decisions regarding medication. The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology recently changed the guidelines for prescribing statins, drugs used to lower blood … Read More
February 7, 2014
Typically, in these posts my goal is to discuss the science behind a certain technique to help us understand the ethical issues surrounding the technique. With the recent case of Jahi MacMath, the thirteen-year-old girl who was declared brain dead … Read More
