Jonathan D. Moreno, Ph.D., is the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Professor of Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and the Director of its Center for Biomedical Ethics.
Dr. Moreno is one of two co-chairs of the committee that wrote, and today issued, a report, a joint project between the National Academies' National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, setting out its recommended guidelines for the ethical conduct of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR).
The report called for the establishment of Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight, or ESCRO, committees at institutions where ESCR is conducted. These ESCROs, today's National Academies of Science (NAS) report recommended, should include experts in biology and stem cell research, and also "legal and ethical experts as well as representatives of the public."
Dr. Moreno spoke today with
California Politics Today about this and other recommendations by the committee, which are designed "to assure the public that stem cell research is being carried out in an ethical manner," according to a quote from him included in a press release issued today by NAS entitled
"Guidelines Released for Embryonic Stem Cell Research".
During the interview, Dr. Moreno indicated that
"representatives of the public" who don't believe that embryonic stem cell research, which relies on the destruction of human embryos early in their development for the purpose of extracting the "cell mass" within the blastocyst to become "pluripotent"/embryonic stem cells, as such, is ethical should not and will not be included on these ESCROs.
After saying he thought few people who object to putting insulin-producing cells into a rodent blastocyst, Dr. Moreno acknowledged as
"a legitimate concern" worries about experiments that would involve the similar insertion of neural (brain) cells into rodent embryos, since doing so raises the rather-frightening, for various reasons, possibility of creating human consciousness in the brain and body of non-human animals.
The NAS press release says that the NAS Stem Cell Research Guidelines "address how far scientists should go in mixing human and animal cells to create so-called chimeras, which researchers may need to do in order to test the therapeutic potential of human stem cells in animal models." In the words of the press release:
"Experiments in which there is a possibility that human cells could contribute in a 'major organized way' to the brain of an animal require strong scientific justification, the committee added."
During this interview, Dr. Moreno acknowledged that, where "strong scientific justification" existed, such an experiment would be acceptable under the NAS Embryonic Stem Cell Research Guidelines.
Dr. Moreno also acknowledged that the possibility that the "technology, techniques, and experience" gained through all embryonic stem cell research short of
"reproductive human cloning" might themselves make that final step more likely was "a very reasonable question," but said that obstacles inherent in that process and regulation according to the guidelines being promulgated by the National Academy of Sciences would serve to reduce the likelihood of such a development.
You can listen to the comments about these new National Academy of Sciences Embryonic Stem Cell Research Guidelines from Dr. Jonathan Moreno, co-chair of the committee that developed them, in their entirety, by clicking
here.
To find out how to order a copy of the National Academy of Sciences Embryonic Stem Cell Research Guidelines, click
here.
To access an audio interview with U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops spokesperson Richard Doerflinger talking about the Catholic Church's view of embryonic stem cell research, also recorded today, click
here.
To access an audio interview with Our Bodies Ourselves Executive Director Judy Norsigian talking about considerations of women's health as they relate to human egg extraction and donation for purposes of
in vitro fertilization (IVF) and for purposes of embryonic stem cell research, similarly recorded today, click
here.
