Tissue and Genome Engineering
README: On this page, Video #1 from NIH gives a quick introduction of ’tissue engineering’. Anthony Atala, who leads one of the biggest laboratories in tissue engineering & regenerative medicine, covers in Video #2 the applications of tissue engineering as regenerative medicine, with examples of regenerating skin, urethra, artery, heart valve, bladder, vagina, liver, kidney, etc.
Video #3 reports the potential use of pig organs as xenografts for humans. The huge challenge of immune rejection in organ transplants is being overcome with CRISPR, the new gene editing approach. The concept of the enabling CRISPR technology is briefly introduced in Video #4 from The Royal Society.
Videos #5 from PBS shows how gene editing is being used in animal husbandry. Video #6 describes how CRISPR can benefit many people with genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia, etc. The two videos cover many of the ethical issues associated with human genome editing, particularly those that are hereditary and for purposes beyond therapy. Video #6 ‘Human Nature’ is rather long (94 mins) but worth every second of your time.
Video #7 is a NBC report on the births of two human gene-edited babies in 2018. The news shock the world with ramifications still felt today and certainly for many years to come. How to draw the ethical line? The question needs to be addressed not only by scientists but also by societies at large. In Video #8, Marcy Darnovsky, a policy advocate from the Center for Genetics and Society, urges that gene editing should be used to treat patients, not to design babies. What do you think?
Video #9 is a trailer of the movie ‘Gattaca’, depicting a time when designer babies are common and the naturally born become an inferior underclass. Video #10 is a trailer of ‘Unnatural Selection’, a Netflix documentary series on ‘Biohacking and Gene Therapy’. It covers stories of some biohackers trying to experiment genome editing outside the regulatory, to demonstrate their demand for more ready access to such technologies.
WHO, UNESCO, and the scientific communities are launching many initiatives to engage the general public regarding genome editing, and in particular hereditary human genome editing. Videos #11 and #12 on the ethics of genome editing are efforts put out by UNESCO and Biochemical Society respectively, as examples.
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Bionic Humans 