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Present adress for Alessandro Blasimme: INSERM UMR 1027, Université de Toulouse 3-Paul Sabatier; International audience; L'autore vuole chiarire i termini di una questione molto dibattuta: la creazione di artefatti biologici interspecifici, anche noti nel gergo della medicina e della bioetica come Human/non-Human Interspecifics (HNHIs). La stampa non scientifica li chiama "embrioni chimera", suscitando lo sconcerto e l'orrore del vasto pubblico. La prima parte dell'articolo è una dettagliata classificazione delle tecniche utilizzate in campo biomedico per ottenere linee cellulari da materiale biologico proveniente da specie diverse, a cui segue la descrizione degli obiettivi conoscitivi e applicativi perseguiti dagli scienziati. In particolare l'autore descrive i protocolli scientifici intrapresi in questi anni e dettaglia il significato dei termini chimera interspecifica, embrione animale chimerico, embrione umano chimerico, embrione ibrido, embrione transgenico e ibrido citiplasmatico o cibrido (cybrid). La seconda parte affronta gli aspetti morali legati a queste tecniche.

Sentience is a capacity that only some organisms have. It is often assumed that this capacity has moral significance and should have a prominent role in moral thinking. The commonsense notion of sentience (as indicated by the etymology, from the Latin sentiens which means “capable of feeling”) suggests that sentience is a capacity to be in certain kinds of mental states. In the ethical literature, the term “sentience” is often used to refer to the ability to feel pain and pleasure. More generally, sentience can be said to be the capacity to have feelings or sensations, which include pain and pleasure but also visual and auditory sensations, hunger, sadness, and so on. Keywords: abortion; agency; Bentham, Jeremy; consequentialism; ecology; intentionality; moral status; practical (applied) ethics; rights; Singer, Peter

International audience

International audience; What has been called the new mechanistic philosophy conceives of mechanisms as the main providers of biological explanation. We draw on the characterization of the p53 gene in molecular oncology, to show that explaining a biological phenomenon (cancer, in our case) implies instead a dynamic interaction between the mechanistic level-rendered at the appropriate degree of ontological resolution-and far more general explanatory tools that perform a fundamental epistemic role in the provision of biological explanations. We call such tools "explanatory frameworks". They are called frameworks to stress their higher level of generality with respect to bare mechanisms; on the other hand, they are called explanatory because, as we show in this paper, their importance in explaining biological phenomena is not secondary with respect to mechanisms. We illustrate how explanatory frameworks establish selective and local criteria of causal relevance that drive the search for, characterisation and usage of biological mechanisms. Furthermore, we show that explanatory frameworks allow for changes of scientific perspective on the causal relevance of mechanisms going beyond the account provided by the new mechanistic philosophy.

The disclosure of incidental findings to genomic research participants is a hotly debated issue in bioethics. Gliwa and Berkman (2013) added a provocative twist to this debate by arguing that, prov...

The history of stem cell research is considered a recent one, yet, it began as early as the middle of the nineteenth century and is rich in questions, approaches, concepts, tools, methodologies and lines of thought. There are at least nine disciplines or research fields which have made major contributions: botany and horticulture; cell theory; evolutionary biology; embryology and developmental biology; haematology; cell and tissue culture; regeneration biology; teratology and teratogeny and cancer research. Moreover, as soon as efforts aimed at extracting and culturing pluripotent cells from human embryos proved successful in 1998, stem cells became objects of bioethical controversy. The moral status of the embryo will be discussed, together with proposed technical means to avoid its destruction, such as altered nuclear transfer, single blastomere biopsy, cytoplasmic hybrids and induced pluripotent stem cells, and the possible ethical problems associated with future medical uses of stem cells. Key Concepts: Far from being a simple technology or a commodity, the study of stem cells concerns a broad spectrum of issues lying at the heart of the phenomenon of life itself, and thus touches on questions that have been on the agenda of biological inquiry for a long time. Like most biological research fields, the history of stem cell research shows a constant weaving and unweaving of many concepts and tools, coming from different experimental settings, lines of thought and at least nine different biomedical areas. At some moments of its history, the ‘stem cell’ has become a more concrete and even manageable object, at other moments it was found difficult to localise the phenomenon of self-renewal in one or in a few cells. Recently, stem cell research is characterised by harsh bioethical controversy, mainly revolving around the issue of the moral status of human embryos. Scientists have proposed some technical ways for circumventing ethical problems, but other morally relevant issues still lie before stem cell research. In the future, medical innovation through stem cell-based regenerative medicine is likely to give rise to issues regarding safety, ethical oversight and distributive justice. Keywords: regeneration; embryo; bioethics; altered nuclear transfer (ANT); induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell; cybrid; distributive justice

Present adress for Alessandro Blasimme: INSERM UMR 1027, Université de Toulouse 3-Paul Sabatier; International audience; This paper explores the epistemology of extrapolation from model organisms to humans in molecular medicine. We take into account two common views on the issue, the homology view and the disanalogy view. In response to both interpretations, we argue that the foundational basis of extrapolations cannot simply be provided by homology and that relevant disanalogies can, thanks to the techniques of molecular biology, be experimentally controlled and exploited to allow useful and reliable extrapolations. The case of "humanised mice" in the context of cancer stem cell research provides evidence of how animal models can be construed to approximate bona fide causal analogue models of human diseases. To supplement this view we show how the epistemology of model organisms needs to take into account the engineering side of molecular medicine. Model organisms are often manipulated to create analogies or remove disanalogies with the target system. We maintain that highlighting this feature is fundamental to explain what warrants extrapolation in the search for the molecular causes of disease.

Present adress of Alessandro Blasimme: INSERM UMR 1027, Université de Toulouse 3-Paul Sabatier; International audience; In this paper we discuss the conditions for the possession of intentional states (especially beliefs) and for intentional agency. We then explore the implications of an analysis of intentionality in non-human animals for their entitlement to ethical treat- ment, and review the potential advantages and epistemological difficulties of relying on the scientific study of animal mindedness to draw ethical conclusions. In the end, we argue that ethical debates on the treatment of animals, and in particular considera- tions about welfare, can benefit considerably from the enterprise of exploring the ex- tent to which non-human animals are minded.

Precision medicine promises to develop diagnoses and treatments that take individual variability into account. According to most specialists, turning this promise into reality will require adapting the established framework of clinical research ethics, and paying more attention to participants’ attitudes towards sharing genotypic, phenotypic, lifestyle data and health records, and ultimately to their desire to be engaged as active partners in medical research.Notions such as participation, engagement and partnership have been introduced in bioethics debates concerning genetics and large-scale biobanking to broaden the focus of discussion beyond individual choice and individuals’ moral interests. The uptake of those concepts in precision medicine is to be welcomed. However, as data and medical information from research participants in precision medicine cohorts will be collected on an individual basis, translating a participatory approach in this emerging area may prove cumbersome. Therefore, drawing on Joseph Raz’s perfectionism, we propose a principle of respect for autonomous agents that, we reckon, can address many of the concerns driving recent scholarship on partnership and public participation, while avoiding some of the limitations these concept have in the context of precision medicine. Our approach offers a normative clarification to how becoming partners in precision is compatible with retaining autonomy.Realigning the value of autonomy with ideals of direct engagement, we show, can provide adequate normative orientation to precision medicine; it can do justice to the idea of moral pluralism by stressing the value of moral self-determination: and, finally, it can reconcile the notion of autonomy with other more communitarian values such as participation and solidarity.