Current Issues:

Human Enhancement : Should humans be made stronger, smarter, longer-lived, etc....? For more, see our Human Enhancement pages. In the EC ETHENTECH Project Edinethics is exploring one of the most challenging issues of our times, and we invite you to explore the issues yourself with the aid of two specially created tools : A Democs card game for small groups, and an OpenUp! argument map for individual use.

• Download the Democs Card Game on human enhancement (six pdf files and one Word file)
• Download the 'Open  Up!' argument map on human enhancement (one pdf file) .

Stem Cells Should we use embryonic stem cells to research therapies for degenerative diseases and treatments for serious injuries? Should we also use them to test future pharmaceutical drugs for toxicity instead of using animals? Do we even need to continue with embryonic stem cells if we can use induced pluripotent cells (iPS) instead? Should we derive sperm from stem cells? Explore some of these complex issues in our Stem Cells pages ...

Cloning :Although cloning is not the hot issue it was in the 1990's applications from Roslin's ground-breaking research continue.

• In human medicine should we use nuclear transfer (cloning) techniques to address mitochondrial diseases?.

• Animal Cloning: Should we apply the Dolly cloning technique for farm animals ... for food? ... for medical applications ...to preserve endangered species ...? See our article on Animal Cloning and Ethics, based on our long experience on this issue.  <\li>

Synthetic Biology is a new technology which raises important ethical issues. For more see our webpages on synthetic biology ... including our press release commenting on Craig Venter's recent work Not Sythethic Life : clever but beware of hype and risks (21 May 2010). Do you want to know what people are thinking about synthetic biology? Download the report of the first results Playing Games Democs to Explore Synthetic Biology (pdf file)

Involving you Do you want to explore these issues for yourself? Edinethics has been working with the New Economics Foundation to create Democs card games on Human Enhancement (for the EC ETHENTECH Project) and Synthetic Biology (pdf files) for Genomics Forum, to help people understand what these new areas of technology are about, and to think about their wider implications. Send off for a game or download it (it's free) and play it with your friends.

Resources Edinethics ran a working group on human enhancement in a previous EC project, NanoBio-Raise; download the report Human Enhancement? . See our pages about the synthetic biology, or .

 

These pages are © Edinethics Ltd. and were last updated on 4 October 2011