Approaching ethical issues in developmental biology

an AI-generated podcast version

Tasked with reporting on the challenges associated with presenting ethical issues in developmental biology courses, Heather Ray (Idaho State) and I put together this paper (now published in Developmental Biology).

Developmental studies pose ethical concerns as they involve manipulating / destroying embryos. Originally justified based on the intrinsic value of understanding all aspects of the world scientifically, their justification has been increasingly based on evolutionary relationships and the hope that such studies will provide useful insights applicable to human health and well-being. The production of increasingly complex human cellular systems and methods for the genetic manipulation of embryos have raised a whole new set of concerns (some of which I considered awhile ago in these blog posts: “Humanized mice & porcinized people” & “Is it time to start worrying about conscious human “mini-brains”).

This Notebook LM-generated podcast summarizes the paper nicely.