Embryos under the Microscope

Jane Maienschein

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780674369733
• Topic: Sciences biologiques
• Subtopic: Biologie

Too tiny to see with the naked eye, the human embryo was just a hypothesis until the microscope made observation of embryonic development possible. This changed forever our view of the minuscule cluster of cells that looms large in questions about the meaning of life. Embryos under the Microscope examines how our scientific understanding of the embryo has evolved from the earliest speculations of natural philosophers to today's biological engineering, with its many prospects for life-enhancing therapies. Jane Maienschein shows that research on embryos has always revealed possibilities that appear promising to some but deeply frightening to others, and she makes a persuasive case that public understanding must be informed by up-to-date scientific findings.Direct observation of embryos greatly expanded knowledge but also led to disagreements over what investigators were seeing. Biologists confirmed that embryos are living organisms undergoing rapid change and are not in any sense functioning persons. They do not feel pain or have any capacity to think until very late stages of fetal development. New information about DNA led to discoveries about embryonic regulation of genetic inheritance, as well as evolutionary relationships among species. Scientists have learned how to manipulate embryos in the lab, taking them apart, reconstructing them, and even synthesizing—practically from scratch—cells, body parts, and maybe someday entire embryos. Showing how we have learned what we now know about the biology of embryos, Maienschein changes our view of what it means to be alive.

Index

AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 199, 254

abortion: social climate, 10–11, 155–156, 158–161; state regulation of, 14–15, 157–158, 282; Catholic views on, 21; and contraception, 154, 158–161. See also Roe v. Wade

achromatic microscopes, 42–43

ACT (Advanced Cell Technology), 203, 231–233

adult stem cells: hematopoietic stem cells, 102–103, 190, 204, 235; defined, 226, 235; compared to embryonic, 235, 244, 245; difficulty locating, 235–236; therapies, 236; research funding, 237, 244–245

Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), 203, 231–233

Aequorea victoria, 137

Akin, Todd, 10, 11

alleles, 112

Allen, Garland, 66, 81

Amblystoma (Ambystoma), 60

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 199, 254

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, 2009), 248, 249

American Society for Cell Biology, 54

American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 174

American Society of Zoologists, 190

“Amphibians, In Analysis of Development” (Holtfreter), 91

animals, as proxy for humans, 193

antirejection drugs, 103

apoptosis, 186

applications of research, 220–225, 248, 255, 272

Archiv für Entwickelungsmechanik (Roux), 68

Aristotle, 2, 23, 29, 31–35, 36, 69

ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), 248, 249

artificial insemination, 152

artificial parthenogenesis, 16, 80

Asilomar conference, 169

Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., et al., 260

Atlas of Fertilization and Karyokinesis of the Ovum (Wilson), 51–53

Augustine, Saint, 20

Bacon, Francis, 272

Baluch, Mary Spaulding, 286

Barnard, Christian, 103

Barry, Martin, 42

basic science, 67, 220–222, 280, 286

Bateson, William, 113

battery-type models, 129–130

Bayh-Dole Act, 217

Bell, Eugene, 188

Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, 188, 189

beta cells, 265

biodiversity, preservation of, 203–204

bioethics: influence of biology on, 161, 276–277; mechanistic conception of, 183; chimeras, 192–194; cloning, 198–200, 201–202; stem cell research, 202–203, 229–231, 237–238; genetic engineering, 209–210; in vitro fertilization, 230; federal organizations, 242, 243, 255; ethical principles, 255–256; synthetic biology, 255–256, 257, 267, 270–271

biogenetic law, 46–48

Biological Bulletin (Marine Biological Laboratory), 83

Biological Lectures (Marine Biological Laboratory), 83

biological sciences, 161, 166–167, 172, 204. See also synthetic biology

Biomedical Systems Research Institute (proposed), 224

biomimetic devices, 265–266

bioreactors, 261

birth control, 153–155, 158–161

Blackburn, Elizabeth H., 187

Blackmun, Harry, 156

blastocyst stage, 5, 6, 146–148, 151, 205, 227, 275

blastomeres, 6, 190

blastula stage, 125, 126

blood circulation, 35–36, 51

blood vessels, stem cells from, 264

bone marrow, stem cells from: hematopoietic stem cells, 102–103, 190, 204, 235; in adult stem cell therapies, 236; in synthetic transplants, 261, 262

bone marrow transplants, 103

Bonner, John Tyler, 185

Bonnet, Charles, 37–38

Boston Herald, 182

“bottom-up” synthetic biology approach, 256

Boveri, Theodor, 75–76, 77, 115, 116

Brachet, Jean, 184

Brenner, Sydney, 58

Briggs, Robert, 123–125, 225

“Bringing them Back to Life” (Zimmer), 204

British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, 194

Britten, Roy J., 128–132

Broun, Paul, 11

Brown, Lesley, 145

Brown, Louise, 145, 151

Brüstle, Oliver, 259

Bryn Mawr, 177

Burdach, Karl Friedrich, 39–40

Burrows, Montrose, 95

Bush, George W., 223, 242, 243, 248–249, 278

Bush, Vannevar, 218–219, 221

Caenorhabditis elegans, 58

California, 225, 232

Campbell, Keith, 195, 197–198

Canada, 194

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