Stem cell guidelines open door to more permissive research on human embryos
By Kelly Servick,
Science
| 05. 26. 2021
The world’s largest stem cell society this week signaled a willingness to reconsider a long-standing restriction on laboratory efforts to grow and study human embryos. In new guidelines, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) also spotlights a possible alternative to using embryos that might be less ethically fraught: emerging methods to model stages of human development with stem cells. ISSCR’s influential guidelines previously put the culture of human embryos beyond 14 days postfertilization in its most restrictive category three: “prohibited research activities.” The new guidelines, drafted by a task force of scientists and ethicists, omit longer embryo culture from this category and encourage a public discussion about allowing it.
The guidelines aren’t legally enforceable. Laws limiting embryo research to either 14 days or formation of a structure called the primitive streak exist in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Sweden, and South Korea. But ISSCR “has an important soft power,” says Annelien Bredenoord, a bioethicist at the University Medical Center Utrecht who is a member of ISSCR’s ethics committee but not part of the guideline task force...
Related Articles
By Jonathan Matthews, GMWatch | 12.11.2025
In our first article in this series, we investigated the dark PR tactics that have accompanied Colossal Bioscience’s de-extinction disinformation campaign, in which transgenic cloned grey wolves have been showcased to the world as resurrected dire wolves – a...
By Jenny Lange, BioNews | 12.01.2025
A UK toddler with a rare genetic condition was the first person to receive a new gene therapy that appears to halt disease progression.
Oliver, now three years old, has Hunter syndrome, an inherited genetic disorder that leads to physical...
By Simar Bajaj, The New York Times | 11.27.2025
A common cold was enough to kill Cora Oakley.
Born in Morristown, N.J., with virtually no immune system, Cora was diagnosed with severe combined immunodeficiency, a rare genetic condition that leaves the body without key white blood cells.
It’s better...
By Rachel Hall, The Guardian | 11.30.2025
Couples are needlessly going through IVF because male infertility is under-researched, with the NHS too often failing to diagnose treatable causes, leading experts have said.
Poor understanding among GPs and a lack of specialists and NHS testing means male infertility...
