Bioethics Obervatory
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The Catholic University of Valencia was founded on the 8th of December 2003. The Institute of Life Sciences was constituted within the University itself, and within it, the Bioethics Observatory. Follow this blog for bioethical concerns of the latest biomedical and biotechnological research findings based on scientific journals.
Bioethics Obervatory
1d ago
On March 21, it was announced that surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) had successfully transplanted a pig kidney into a living 62-year-old man suffering from severe kidney disease. The surgery, which lasted 4 hours, was performed on March 16.
This procedure in a living recipient represents a milestone in the field of xenotransplantation (the transplantation of organs or tissues from one species to another) as a possible solution to the worldwide organ shortage.
The MGH is recognized for being a center where numerous transplants are performed, both organs and tissues. The doctor w ..read more
Bioethics Obervatory
6d ago
Scientists from University College London (United Kingdom) have published research in Nature Medicine in which fetal stem/progenitor cells were obtained from amniotic fluid and grown in the laboratory to give rise to organoids. These are three-dimensional models of miniature organs on which a multitude of in vitro studies can be carried out. This is the first time organoids have been cultured directly from cells taken from ongoing pregnancies.
The cells obtained were epithelial cells of fetal gastrointestinal, renal and pulmonary origin, from which they managed to form organoids that manifeste ..read more
Bioethics Obervatory
1w ago
French President Emmanuel Macron has given an interview to the newspapers Libération and La Croix in which he commented that he is preparing a bill to legalize euthanasia that will be presented in April to the French parliament.
Although Macron intends for it to be called neither the euthanasia law nor the assisted suicide law, these are the practices that he wants to legalize, although he uses the euphemism “aid in dying” to refer to them.
“Aid in dying” may be applied if the person meets the following requirements: 1) be an adult; 2) have complete discernment, that is, not suffer from A ..read more
Bioethics Obervatory
3w ago
The French State has just approved by a majority of 80% the inclusion of the right to abortion in its Constitution. The intention behind this decision is to protect women’s presumed right to abort against possible limitations to their freedom that could be established by future governments, more sensitive to respect for human life.
The reform now approved has been presented by French politicians from almost the entire political spectrum as a conquest of freedom for women, who will finally be able to “dispose of their bodies” without restrictions.
But is the recognition of the right to abort re ..read more
Bioethics Obervatory
3w ago
According to a study by the Spanish Association of Accredited Clinics for the Termination of Pregnancy (ACAI), 85% of women who have abortions prefer to undergo a surgical abortion in an abortion clinic while the remaining 15% prefer to use abortion pills (mifepristone) to have a medication abortion (also known as a medical abortion, chemical abortion or non-surgical abortion).
However, according to data from the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE), chemical abortion based on mifepristone combined with misoprostol has grown dramatically, rising from 5.4% of all abortions in 201 ..read more
Bioethics Obervatory
1M ago
The Alabama Supreme Court has legally equated frozen embryos with born children, prohibiting their destruction and establishing serious legal consequences if it is done. “Unborn children are ‘children’ under the [law], without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics,” said Jay Mitchell, one of the court’s judges.
This ruling resolves a lawsuit filed by three couples who lost their frozen embryos in 2020. A patient, after entering the place where the embryos were stored in a fertility clinic, dropped them to the ground, causing their des ..read more
Bioethics Obervatory
1M ago
Stanford researchers have developed a new AI model that can identify different brain functional connectivities depending on sex.
The study, published in PNAS on February 20, helps resolve whether sex-related differences exist in the human brain and suggests that understanding these differences may be critical to addressing neuropsychiatric conditions that affect women and men differently.
Vinod Menon, director of the Stanford Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Laboratory and lead author of the work, said that “a key motivation for this study is that sex plays a crucial role in human brain deve ..read more
Bioethics Obervatory
1M ago
In Albania, the number of births of girls is decreasing due to selective abortions that have been carried out in recent years.
This is a nation with a majority Muslim population (60%) in which there are great social inequalities between men and women, which could explain the tendency to limit the birth of girls.
Anila Hoxha, a women’s rights activist from Tirana, says that in large areas of the Balkans, “a male child is believed to be “the pillar of the family”, while girls are seen as a “burden or a weaker sex in an aggressive society”.
According to Manuela Bello, representative of the United ..read more
Bioethics Obervatory
1M ago
In the mid-nineteenth century, Louis Pasteur conducted the famous experiments refuting the theory of spontaneous generation, according to which spontaneously living organisms could originate from inert, organic or inorganic matter. It was a belief, already noted by Aristotle, which was accepted almost universally, although some scholastics, with Thomas Aquinas at the head, raised objections from a philosophical angle. Following Pasteur’s experiments, the theory was abandoned, and from then on, the principle omne vivum ex vivo (all life comes from life), also formulated as omnis cellula e cellu ..read more
Bioethics Obervatory
1M ago
Two patients participating in a clinical trial studying a cell therapy as a new treatment for type 1 diabetes have died following the administration of modified stem cells. Although the pharmaceutical company claims that none of the deaths are related to the therapy, they have chosen to pause the program.
One of the deceased is Brian Shelton, the first person to be cured of type 1 diabetes after being treated with this therapy and who had begun to produce his own insulin six months after being treated with VX-880.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ drug, VX-880, has proven very successful in eliminating ..read more