1,198 research outputs found
The embryo as moral work object: PGD/IVF staff views and experiences
Copyright @ 2008 the authors. This article is available in accordance with the Creative Commons Deed, Attribution 2.5, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/deed.en_CA.We report on one aspect of a study that explored the views and experiences of practitioners and scientists on social, ethical and clinical dilemmas encountered when working in the field of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for serious genetic disorders. The study produced an ethnography based on observation, interviews and ethics discussion groups with staff from two PGD/IVF Units in the UK. We focus here on staff perceptions of work with embryos that entails disposing of âaffectedâ or âspareâ embryos or using them for research. A variety of views were expressed on the âembryo questionâ in contrast to polarised media debates. We argue that the prevailing policy acceptance of destroying affected embryos, and allowing research on embryos up to 14 days leaves some staff with rarely reported, ambivalent feelings. Staff views are under-researched in this area and we focus on how they may reconcile their personal moral views with the ethical framework in their field. Staff construct embryos in a variety of ways as âmoral work objectsâ. This allows them to shift attention between micro-level and overarching institutional work goals, building on Casper's concept of âwork objectsâ and focusing on negotiation of the social order in a morally contested field.The Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Programme, who funded the projectsâFacilitating choice, framing choice: the experience of staff working in pre-implantation genetic diagnosisâ (no: 074935), and âEthical Frameworks for Embryo Donation:the views and practices of IVF/PGD staffâ (no: 081414)
Fresh or frozen? Classifying âspare' embryos for donation to human embryonic stem cell research
This article is available open access, funded by the Wellcome Trust. It is distributed under a Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Copyright @ 2010 Elsevier Ltd.United Kingdom (UK) funding to build human embryonic stem cell (hESC) derivation labs within assisted conception units (ACU) was intended to facilitate the âIn-vitro fertilisation (IVF)-stem cell interfaceâ, including the flow of fresh âspareâ embryos to stem cell labs. However, in the three sites reported on here, which received this funding, most of the embryos used for hESC research came from long term cryopreservation storage and/or outside clinics. In this paper we explore some of the clinical, technical, social and ethical factors that might help to explain this situation. We report from our qualitative study of the ethical frameworks for approaching women/couples for donation of embryos to stem cell research. Members of staff took part in 44 interviews and six ethics discussion groups held at our study sites between February 2008 and October 2009. We focus here on their articulations of social and ethical, as well as scientific, dimensions in the contingent classification of âspareâ embryos, entailing uncertainty, fluidity and naturalisation in classifying work. Social and ethical factors include acknowledging and responding to uncertainty in classifying embryos; retaining âfluidityâ in the grading system to give embryos âevery chanceâ; tensions between standardisation and variation in enacting a âfairâ grading system; enhancement of patient choice and control, and prevention of regret; and incorporation of patientsâ values in construction of ethically acceptable embryo âsparenessâ (âfrozenâ embryos, and embryos determined through preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to be genetically âaffectedâ). We argue that the success of the âbuilt moral environmentâ of ACU with adjoining stem cell laboratories building projects intended to facilitate the âIVF-stem cell interfaceâ may depend not only on architecture, but also on the part such social and ethical factors play in configuration of embryos as particular kinds of moral work objects.The Wellcome Trus
Embryo futures and stem cell research: The management of informed uncertainty
This article is available open access and is distributed under a Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Copyright @ 2011 The Authors.In the social worlds of assisted conception and stem cell science, uncertainties proliferate and particular framings of the future may be highly strategic. In this article we explore meanings and articulations of the future using data from our study of ethical and social issues implicated by the donation of embryos to human embryonic stem cell research in three linked assisted conception units and stem cell laboratories in the UK. Framings of the future in this field inform the professional management of uncertainty and we explore some of the tensions this involves in practice. The bifurcation of choices for donating embryos into accepting informed uncertainty or not donating at all was identified through the research process of interviews and ethics discussion groups. Professional staff accounts in this study contained moral orientations that valued ideas such as engendering patient trust by offering full information, the sense of collective ownership of the National Heath Service and publicly funded science and ideas for how donors might be able to give restricted consent as a third option.The Wellcome Trus
Donation of 'spare' fresh or frozen embryos to research: Who decides that an embryo is 'spare' and how can we enhance the quality and protect the validity of consent?
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited - Copyright @ The Author 2012.This paper analyses elements of the legal process of consent to the donation of âspareâ embryos to research, including stem-cell research, and makes a recommendation intended to enhance the quality of that process, including on occasion by guarding against the invalidity of such consent. This is important in its own right and also so as to maximise the reproductive treatment options of couples engaged in in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment and to avoid possible harms to them. In Part 1, with reference to qualitative data from three UK IVF clinics, we explore the often delicate and contingent nature of what comes to be, for legal purposes, a âspareâ embryo. The way in which an embryo becomes âspareâ, with its implications for the process of consent to donation to research, is not addressed in the relevant reports relating to or codes of practice governing the donation of embryos to research, which assume an unproblematic notion of the âspareâ embryo. Significantly, our analysis demonstrates that there is an important and previously unrecognised first stage in the donation of a âspareâ embryo to research, namely: consent to an embryo being âspareâ and so, at the same time, to its disuse in treatment. This is not explicitly covered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Act 1990, as amended by the HFE Act 2008. Having identified this important initial stage in the process of consent to the donation of a âspareâ embryo to research in conclusion to Part 1, in Part 2 we analyse the idea of consent to an embryo's disuse in treatment on the basis that it is âspareâ with reference to the legal elements of consent, namely information as to nature and purpose, capacity, and voluntariness. We argue that there are in fact three related consent processes in play, of which the principal one concerns consent to an embryo's disuse in treatment. If the quality of this first consent is compromised, in turn this will impact on the quality of the consent to the donation of that âspareâ embryo to research, followed by the quality of consent to future cycles of assisted reproduction treatment in the event that these are needed as a result of a donation decision. The analysis overall is of central relevance to the debate as to whether, and if so when, it should be permissible to request the donation of fresh embryos for research, as opposed to those that have been frozen and, for instance, have reached the end of their statutory storage term. This has a particular bearing on the donation of embryos to stem-cell research since there is a debate as to whether fresh embryos are most useful for this.This work is funded by the Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Programme, Project Grant No 081414
Choosing embryos: Ethical complexity and relational autonomy in staff accounts of PGD
Copyright @ 2008 the authors. This article is available in accordance with the Creative Commons Deed, Attribution 2.5, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/deed.en_CA.The technique of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is commonly explained as a way of checking the genes of embryos produced by IVF for serious genetic diseases. However, complex accounts of this technique emerged during ethics discussion groups held for PGD staff. These form part of a study exploring the social processes, meanings and institutions that frame and produce âethical problemsâ for practitioners, scientists and others working in the specialty of PGD in the UK. Two âgrey areasâ raised by staff are discussed in terms of how far staff are, or in the future may be, able to support autonomous choices of women/couples: accepting âcarrierâ embryos within the goal of creating a âhealthyâ child; and sex selection of embryos for social reasons. These grey areas challenged the staffâs resolve to offer individual informed choice, in the face of their awareness of possible collective social effects that might ensue from individual choices. We therefore argue that these new forms of choice pose a challenge to conventional models of individual autonomy used in UK genetic and reproductive counselling, and that ârelational autonomyâ may be a more suitable ethical model to describe the ethical principles being drawn on by staff working in this area.The Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Programme, who funded the project âFacilitating choice, framing choice: the experience of staff workingin pre-implantation genetic diagnosisâ (no: 074935)
Social welfare, genetic welfare? Boundary-work in the IVF/PGD clinic
Copyright @ 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Through the lens of the âwelfare of the childâ assessment, this paper explores how staff working in the area of in vitro fertilisation and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (IVF/PGD) balance reďŹexive relations of legitimacy and accountability between the public and private spheres, and between medicine, the citizen and the state. The wider research of which this analysis is a part uses multiple methods to study two National Health Service Assisted Conception Units in England. Research methods used included observation clinics and interviews with staff from a range of disciplines. We illustrate how the staff reveal tensions between their views that the welfare of the child assessment can be seen as intrusive and discriminatory, and on the other hand that medical intervention in reproduction should be socially and professionally accountable. These tensions can be understood sociologically in terms of a gradual movement from socially based solutions to fertility problems and disabilities, towards a biomedical, and arguably genetically oriented world view of such problems. Rather than being viewed as discrete, these two orientations should be seen as indicating an emergent direction of travel along a continuum, with elements of both being present in the accounts. We argue that consideration of the welfare of the child involves staff in ethical boundary-work across the two orientations and between the accountabilities and responsibilities of healthcare professionals, individuals and the state.The Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Programme, who funded the project âFacilitating choice, framing choice: the experience of staff working in preimplantation genetic diagnosisâ (no. 074935)
A âhealthy babyâ: The double imperative of preimplantation genetic diagnosis
This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 The Authors.This article reports from a study exploring the social processes, meanings and institutions that frame and produce âethical problemsâ and clinical dilemmas for practitioners, scientists and others working in the specialty of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). A major topic in the data was that, in contrast to IVF, the aim of PGD is to transfer to the womanâs womb only those embryos likely to be unaffected by serious genetic disorders; that is, to produce âhealthy babiesâ. Staff described the complex processes through which embryos in each treatment cycle must meet a double imperative: they must be judged viable by embryologists and âunaffectedâ by geneticists. In this article, we focus on some of the ethical, social and occupational issues for staff ensuing from PGDâs double imperative.The Wellcome Trus
Interspecific and interploidal gene flow in Central European Arabidopsis (Brassicaceae)
Background
Effects of polyploidisation on gene flow between natural populations are little known. Central European diploid and tetraploid populations of Arabidopsis arenosa and A. lyrata are here used to study interspecific and interploidal gene flow, using a combination of nuclear and plastid markers.
Results
Ploidal levels were confirmed by flow cytometry. Network analyses clearly separated diploids according to species. Tetraploids and diploids were highly intermingled within species, and some tetraploids intermingled with the other species, as well. Isolation with migration analyses suggested interspecific introgression from tetraploid A. arenosa to tetraploid A. lyrata and vice versa, and some interploidal gene flow, which was unidirectional from diploid to tetraploid in A. arenosa and bidirectional in A. lyrata.
Conclusions
Interspecific genetic isolation at diploid level combined with introgression at tetraploid level indicates that polyploidy may buffer against negative consequences of interspecific hybridisation. The role of introgression in polyploid systems may, however, differ between plant species, and even within the small genus Arabidopsis, we find very different evolutionary fates when it comes to introgression
Information engine in a nonequilibrium bath
Information engines can convert thermal fluctuations of a bath at temperature
into work at rates of order per relaxation time of the
system. We show experimentally that such engines, when in contact with a bath
that is out of equilibrium, can extract much more work. We place a heavy,
micron-scale bead in a harmonic potential that ratchets up to capture favorable
fluctuations. Adding a fluctuating electric field increases work extraction up
to ten times, limited only by the strength of applied field. Our results
connect Maxwell's demon with energy harvesting and an estimate of efficiency
shows that information engines in nonequilibrium baths can greatly outperform
conventional engines.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure
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