The development of medical treatments often requires use of human subjects, as well as human cells and body parts as models of human systems, to investigate mechanisms of action and to test therapeutics. Biotechnology has provided many successful therapies for previously intractable conditions, but also increasingly complex techniques that can alter what it means to be human and blur ethical lines. When we consider stem cells, cloning, gene editing, human-animal chimeras, organoids, embryoids and so-called synthetic embryos, what is ethical and what crosses the line of human dignity? Is any scientific endeavor justifiable because of a potential for cures, or are there ethical limits to efforts to heal or eliminate certain diseases all together? Do ethical alternatives exist that would benefit humanity without losing our ethical integrity?

The Charlotte Lozier Institute has developed the Handbook of Nascent Human Beings to explain the science and to stimulate discussion on the ethics and moral permissibility of modern medicine and biotechnology. The place of this research in policy will also be discussed.

David A. Prentice, Ph.D. is Vice President and Research Director for the Charlotte Lozier Institute. He is also Adjunct Professor of Molecular Genetics at the John Paul II Institute, The Catholic University of America and was a Founding Advisory Board Member for the Midwest Stem Cell Therapy Center, a unique comprehensive stem cell center in Kansas that he was instrumental in creating. In 2020, he was appointed by the Secretary of HHS to the federal Human Fetal Tissue Ethics Advisory Board. Dr. Prentice has over 40 years’ experience as a scientific researcher and professor, including previous service as senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council, Professor of Life Sciences at Indiana State University, and Adjunct Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Indiana University School of Medicine.

Tara Sander Lee, Ph.D. is the Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an organization dedicated to policies and practices that protect the sanctity of human life. She is a scientist with 20 years’ experience in academic and clinical medicine with an emphasis on the cause of pediatric disease. She obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Medical College of Wisconsin and fellowship training at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Sander Lee was an appointed faculty member at the Medical College of Wisconsin for over 15 years, where she directed a research lab investigating congenital heart disease in children and served as Scientific Director of Molecular Diagnostics at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin