enerbol and Teratoma

Results of recent research on hydatidiform moles and teratomas show that during pregnancy the embryo does not receive any message or information from the mother able to control the mechanisms of development or to produce the type of cellular differentiation necessary for building the tissues of the new human adult. Thus, the biological identity of the new human being does not depend on the sojourn in the uterus; the preimplantation embryo is the same individual of the human species as the adult, into whom the embryo can in principle develop.

Topics: Beginning of Human Life; Embryonic and Fetal Development; Female; Genetic Diseases, Inborn; Human Characteristics; Humanism; Humans; Hydatidiform Mole; Life; Male; Maternal-Fetal Exchange; Personhood; Pregnancy; Sperm-Ovum Interactions; Teratoma; Theology; Uterine Neoplasms

The thesis that the human zygote is essentially identical with the person into which it can develop is difficult to maintain, because the zygote can become several persons. In addition, the thesis depends upon ambiguities in the notions of human being, human individual, human body, and soul. A human being may be individual in the sense of either a biologically integrated unity or a psychologically integrated unity. A person is a psychologically integrated unity, because it must unify its experiences in morally imputable actions. To say that the zygote is a person requires one to assert that the zygote has the same principle of psychological integration, i.e., a rational soul, as one who can obviously manifest psychological integration. The assertion is incapable of being justified in empirical (e.g., non-religious) terms.

Topics: Beginning of Human Life; Embryonic and Fetal Development; Female; Genetic Diseases, Inborn; Human Characteristics; Human Development; Humanism; Humans; Hydatidiform Mole; Individuality; Life; Metaphysics; Personhood; Philosophy, Medical; Pregnancy; Teratoma; Theology; Twinning, Monozygotic; Zygote

The nineteenth century science of teratology concerned itself with the study of malformations or "monstrosities", as they were then called. The first major contribution to the field was the work of Isidore Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, Historie Generale et Particuliere des Anomalies de l'Organisation chez l'Homme et les Animaux, published in 1832, whose classifications formed the basis for the later experimental science of teratogeny, the art of reproducing monstrosities in animal embryos. In this article, I will argue that recent developments in the field of regenerative medicine can be situated in the tradition of teratological and teratogenic studies dating back to the nineteenth century. In particular, I will be interested in the historical link between studies in teratogenesis (the artificial production of teratomas) and stem cell research. Recent advances in stem cell research, I will suggest, return us to the questions that animated nineteenth century investigations into the nature of the monstrous or the anomalous. In the process, our most intuitive conceptions of "life itself" are undergoing a profound transformation.

Topics: Animals; Biological Evolution; Congenital Abnormalities; Embryo, Mammalian; Embryonic and Fetal Development; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; Humans; Life; Philosophy; Stem Cells; Teratology; Teratoma