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One reaction has been to say that it is unlikely ever to happen. It might require dangerous and unethical experiments on human beings. Indeed it is illegal in the UK under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Other reasons advanced are to do with pragmatics and funding. From a utilitarian point of view, the end of eradicating a genetic disease, if this was desired, could better and more cheaply be achieved by the means of therapeutic abortion of affected embryos or foetuses. This poses as many ethically problems as it would solve, since it dismisses the views of those who think that termination of pregnancy under such circumstances would be wrong, or others who consider that abortion has already become far too permissive.
Overall, it is a common view that germline therapy is certainly
a very distant prospect. This view may now need revisiting in
the light of two events in the last few weeks that could make
some of these questions closer than we had thought.
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This is not about to happen tomorrow, however. The article makes clear there are a lot of technical "if's" - for example how would one prove whether the cells were indeed totipotent without doing the ethically highly questionable experiment of injecting them into a human embryo and creating a human chimera (of mixed genetic composition) as the intermediate stage.
There is an interesting sideline to this regarding animals. Until Roslin's work on nuclear transfer, stem cell technology of this kind was seen as the future way to do genetic manipulation in mammals, if anyone could find a way of growing animals other than mice from stem cells. People have been trying to do this for some years, and still without success as far as I know. It's quite a surprise then if what appears to be a necessary first step has been done in human cells before animals.
Professor Gearhart evidently says human germline manipulation is not his goal. He appears to more interested in growing tissues for grafting or transplanting, of which there could be a variety of applications, or in helping somatic gene therapy. Similarly Roslin and PPL have stated they regard human cloning as unethical, but a number of people have asked if more limited use of their technique would not be so unacceptable.
This page has been produced by the Society Religion and Technology Project of the Church of Scotland. For more about our work on other issues, see our Other SRT Project pages, our SRT Publications List, or our On-line SRT Newsletter.
We'd also welcome any comments you may have. We don't claim to have said the last word!
If you want to send us a comment or obtain further information or receive our latest Newsletter,
email us at :
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or send an ordinary letter or fax to :
Dr.Donald M.Bruce,This page has been produced by the Society Religion and Technology Project of the Church of Scotland. For more about our work on other issues, see our Other SRT Project pages, or our SRT Publications List.
We'd also welcome any comments you may have. We don't claim to have said the last word!
If you want to send us a comment or obtain further information or receive our latest Newsletter,
email us at :
mailto:srtp@srtp.org.uk
or send an ordinary letter or fax to :
Dr.Donald M.Bruce,Return to Contents
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