Embryo

Here’s the bird’s eye view on science this week: Mental health effects of child maltreatment may surface later in life Maltreatment during childhood increases the risk of diagnosis with a mental health disorder after the age of 38, even without a prior history of mental health disorders, researchers have found. Read full Digest >>> More hope for would-be parents? Many embryos ruled out in IVF “self-correct”

If you haven’t heard of the term “designer babies,” you will soon. A designer baby, in its most basic form, is an embryo that has been genetically manipulated (or gene-edited) to produce a child with certain characteristics. Unfavourable features or poor traits (such as a genetic disease) may be removed…

Review for a university assessment: Cara Buskmiller, “Cryopreserved Embryo Adoption. Not Now, Maybe Later,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 16.2 (Summer 2016): 225–231 Assessor’s comments: The paper begins well, clearly identifying the moral issue at hand — the tension between wanting to save life of the embryo who remains in the…

Researchers have developed a new method to grow human primordial germ cells from stem cells in a laboratory dish. — In humans and other animals, eggs and sperm are unique cells that pass on genetic material to the next generation. They originate from a small group of cells called primordial germ cells that form early in life in the developing embryo. Several different signal molecules including ones known as BMP4…

National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly article summarised: The Embryo as Person, by Kevin D O’Rourke OP (Summer 2006) If it is accepted that the human embryo is a person, given they are not autonomous, there is the question of which person/s are responsible for their care, and to what extent. If…

Researchers develop a new human cell-based strategy to model heart and lung co-development. — Organs begin developing during the first few months of pregnancy, while the baby is still an embryo. These early stages of development are known as embryogenesis — a tightly organized process, during which the embryo forms different layers of stem cells. …

Dr Sofie Mohlin and her research group at Lund University in Sweden study the function of a protein, HIF-2α, in foetal development and cancer, mainly childhood cancer form neuroblastoma. Until recently, little was known about the function of HIF-2α in embryogenesis. However, the group’s latest research found that HIF-2α is…