Controversial New Guidelines Would Allow Experiments On More Mature Human Embryos

Insoo Hyun, PhD, Faculty Member, Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School comments on these new guidelines

"There is a way to genetically engineer both the embryo and the stem cells so that the stem cells will only make a particular organ," says Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Harvard and Case Western Reserve universities, who helped write the guidelines.

"Nobody wants a chimeric embryo to grow into a part-human, part-animal thing that has human cells from head to toe mixed in."

But the guidelines could conceivably allow a human-monkey embryo to develop inside a monkey's womb. And so those requirements did little to satisfy critics.

Hear the full interview