The Ethics of Human Brain Organoids and Human-Animal Neural Chimeras Among U.S. Bioethicists and Public | Bioethics Grand Rounds

Medical research for neurological disorders has been limited by the fact that it is ethically difficult to experiment on live people’s brains.  In response, scientists have created small (4mm) pieces of human brains in a dish made from human stem calls to experiment upon called human brain organoids.  With the same motivation, there are now also animals that have had their brains “humanized” in various ways, resulting in human-animal neural chimeras.  This is all ethically controversial.  In this talk Professor Evans will talk about the ethics of academics on these issues and compare these to the ethics of the public, as determined by an empirical social science study.  The public’s ethics are based on foundational cultural distinctions typically not held by academics.