Fully Lab Made Embryo - Thoughts....?

[SpicyMoth]

Apologies if this has been posted about already but I couldn't see it anywhere when checking!

Just wondered people's thoughts on this?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66715669

My gut reaction is honestly hard to describe.
In terms of research, I imagine like the article says, it could be far more ethical.
(Though I'm still sceptical, if it is objectively an embryo that they've created, then it would grow into something at some point, thus making it once again unethical surely? Creating life, even if no sperm or egg is directly used and then experimenting on said life, HAS to be unethical by definition doesn't it?)

In terms of everything else though?
It worries me. When we've already heard talk of babies being grown in pods in big facilities as "proof of concept" stuff, or the possibility of women who are in "brain dead" states being used as "birthing vessels" for others, the womb transplant success and it's conversation immediately becoming "But what about men"

I'm just struggling to see a world where this happens, and it isn't a net negative for humanity honestly.
I don't trust "the people in charge" whoever they may be, to actually be doing anything beneficial for humanity with this sadly :/

And you really can't spot some obvious applications beyond that scope?

Yes, there are lots of other applications beyond fertility. Early detection of genetic diseases and study of development of the same, for example.

I am not going to dignify the crashingly paranoid idea that this is going to lead to child farms on boats in the ocean with a response.

My thoughts are zero because I don’t think we’ll be around in any shape in the future. So if they want to try and hatch us like chicks then crack (🥴) on.

Yes I read this some time ago. It's terrible that they didn't seek permission from her family or tell any of them at the time (sixties if I remember?)! I used to think about her every time I used the HeLa cell line on my degree course and first job afterwards. There are many, many immortal cell lines now, this is another one. Lets hope the.people that establish them get proper consent now. As students in the late nineties they used to make us try and establish cell lines from tumours that had been removed from women in theatre (cancer research). We were never shown any consent forms, I can only hope the hospital had them (attached research lab).

Ultimately though, they are all cell line models, not actual organs or embryo's thatbcoudl be transplanted into a human, let's hope medical ethics keeps pace with it all and never lets actual human cloning happen.

Out of interest, if this isn’t really ‘news’ per se, and these cell lines aren’t actual embryos, capable of growing into a foetus, what’s your take on this being presented in this way?

I thought immortalised cell lines were different from stem cells.

Same. Smacks of Frankenstein. Horrific

Sounds good to me. Bring it on!

It's not news per se really in terms of cell lines but difficult to explain and I haven't worked in the area since the nineties so I'd struggle to explain it, we need a current molecular biologist or microbiologist really to explain it but what I think is new is that most established Cell lines were derived from tumour cells so immortal already, this is possibly the first cell line derived from embryonic stem cells. But cell line models derived from human cells aren't in any way new and are used for all sorts of important and medical research and have been for decades. It's not actually as Frankenstinian as it sounds. I suspect the news have confused embryonic cells with embryonic stem cells maybe which might have just come from bone marrow. Although it does seem to imply it was differentiated into different types of embryonic tissue.

It's womb transplants into men we need to be worried about imo and vehemently oppose, not this.

Thank you.