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Applications of Nanotechnology in Reproductive Medicine
Published in Tuan Vo-Dinh, Nanotechnology in Biology and Medicine, 2017
Celine Jones, Natalia Barkalina, Sarah Francis, Lien Davidson, Kevin Coward
For example, Kim et al. (2010b) demonstrated successful exogenous DNA transfection into boar sperm using magnetic nanoparticles, which resulted in the production of transgenic embryos as detected by the expression of exogenous green fluorescent protein (GFP) at the morula stage. More recently, bovine sperm was transfected with exogenous DNA using a nanopolymer and halloysite clay nanotubes as transfectants, in a method known as Nano-SMGT, with no reported effect upon motility or viability (Campos et al., 2011a, b). Furthermore, GFP-conjugated chitosan nanoparticles were successfully used for in utero gene delivery into mouse embryos (Yang et al., 2011). One particularly exciting application of such technology is in the field of human fertility treatment. Despite advancements in the field of assisted reproductive technology (ART), a notable proportion of infertility cases are still classified as unexplained, with the underlying causes undetermined. Due to the recognition of nanoparticles as promising multifunctional gene delivery vehicles, there is growing interest in their use in ART as potential diagnostic or therapeutic agents in the clinic, and as a way of investigating, inhibiting, or augmenting the molecular pathways underlying infertile phenotypes.
Ethics in biotechnology
Published in Firdos Alam Khan, Biotechnology Fundamentals, 2018
Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is a medical intervention developed to improve an “infertile” couple’s chance of pregnancy. “Infertility” is clinically accepted as the inability to conceive after 12 months of actively trying to conceive. The means of ART involves separating procreation from sexual intercourse. The importance of this association is addressed in bioethics. Some techniques used in clinical ART include artificial insemination, IVF, gamete intrafallopian transfer, gestational surrogate mothering, gamete donation, sex selection, and PGD. Issues addressed in bioethics are the appropriate use of these technologies and the techniques employed to carry out procedures for quality and ethical reviews. ART and its use directly impact the foundational unit of society—the family. ART enables children to be conceived who have no genetic relationship to one or both of their parents. Children can also be conceived who will never have a social relationship with one or both of their genetic parents, such as a child conceived using donor sperm. Non-infertile people in today’s society—including both male and female homosexual couples, single men and women, and postmenopausal women—are seeking the assistance of ART. Concerns in all situations include the child and his or her welfare, including the right to have one biological mother and father. The fragmented family created by ART can disconnect genetic, gestational, and social child–parent relationships, which have typically been one and the same in the traditional nuclear family. Other important bioethical issues include the appropriate use of PGD screening, use, and storage; destruction of excess IVF embryos; and research involving embryos. ART research requires human participants, donors and donated embryos, oocytes and sperm. Ethical issues that arise in ART research surround the creation and destruction of embryos. One approach in bioethics involves preserving justice, beneficence, non-malfeasance, and the autonomous interests of all involved. Bioethicists contribute to ethical guidelines and moral evaluations of new technologies and techniques in ART as well as to public discourse that lead to the development of national regulations and restrictions of unacceptable practices.
Ethics in Biotechnology
Published in Firdos Alam Khan, Biotechnology Fundamentals, 2020
Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is a medical intervention developed to improve an “infertile” couple’s chance of pregnancy. “Infertility” is clinically accepted as the inability to conceive after 12 months of actively trying to conceive. The means of ART involves separating procreation from sexual intercourse. The importance of this association is addressed in bioethics. Some techniques used in clinical ART include artificial insemination, IVF, gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT), gestational surrogate mothering, gamete donation, sex selection, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Issues addressed in bioethics are the appropriate use of these technologies and the techniques employed to carry out procedures for quality and ethical reviews. ART and its use directly impact the foundational unit of society—the family. ART enables children to be conceived who have no genetic relationship to one or both of their parents. Children can also be conceived who will never have a social relationship with one or both of their genetic parents, such as a child conceived using donor sperm. Non-infertile people in today’s society—including both male and female homosexual couples, single men and women, and postmenopausal women—are seeking the assistance of ART. Concerns in all situations include the child and his or her welfare, including the right to have one biological mother and father. The fragmented family created by ART can disconnect genetic, gestational, and social child–parent relationships that have typically been one and the same in the traditional nuclear family. Other important bioethical issues include the appropriate use of PGD screening; use and storage; destruction of excess IVF embryos; and research involving embryos. ART research requires human participants, donors and donated embryos, oocytes and sperm. Ethical issues that arise in ART research surround the creation and destruction of embryos. One approach in bioethics involves preserving justice, beneficence, non-malfeasance, and the autonomous interests of all involved. Bioethicists contribute to ethical guidelines and moral evaluations of new technologies and techniques in ART as well as to the public discourse that lead to the development of national regulations and restrictions of unacceptable practices.
The reproductive silk route: transnational mobility of oocytes from Europe to Brazil
Published in Mobilities, 2023
Rosana Machin, Consuelo Álvarez Plaza, Marc Abraham Puig Hernández
Brazil accounts for 40% of assisted reproductive technology (ART) births in Latin America (Zegers-Hochschild et al. 2019; Machin 2022). According to the National Health Surveillance Agency – ANVISA (ANVISA 2018) of the Ministry of Health, there are 183 reproductive clinics in Brazil that use highly complex technology, 90% of which are privately financed (Souza 2014; Machin et al. 2020). This implies not only payment for the procedures carried out directly in the clinics, but also for examinations and medications. Private health plans do not cover reproductive treatments. The need for donated gametes increased due to legal changes, delayed maternity and lower costs. In 2011, the Supreme Court of Justice awarded homosexual couples the same rights as heterosexual couples, enabling their legal recognition. The needs of heterosexual couples also increased through the expansion of funding and cheaper clinical services (Machin 2022). Given the scarcity of donations, associated with the fact that no type of remuneration or compensation is allowed, the importation of foreign gametes has been permitted as of 2011.
“I did everything humanly possible”: the process of making reproductive decisions in the context of assisted reproduction in Chile
Published in Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society, 2020
Assisted reproductive technology (ART) has expanded the range of what is possible in human reproduction, posing new ethical challenges. What is considered acceptable has changed over time and varies across countries. Around the world, regulatory systems also differ greatly (Richards 2014). ART is not transferred neutrally but is translated into local practices and languages (Raspberry 2007). According to Asplund (2020), assisted reproduction involves a complex interaction between rapid scientific-technological development and changes (and continuities) in societal values. The use and regulation of ARTs raise questions about what constitutes human life, what elements determine parenthood, and to what extent it is legitimate to intervene in reproduction. People who use ARTs are forced to ask these questions.
Donation of Human Biological Materials in the European Union: Commodifying Solidarity in the Era of the Biotechnological Revolution?
Published in The New Bioethics, 2019
Luciana Riva, Giorgio Resta, Alberto Gambino, Carlo Petrini
Besides, some might think they should be able to sell body parts in just the same way that they can, for example, sell their cars. Across the EU, reproductive cells can be donated – not sold – to private businesses (with reimbursement of costs or compensation) that use them to obtain a profit. Although it can be assumed that those clinics provide irreplaceable medical treatment for people in need, it does not seem totally wrong to say that they sell donated cells. In all Member States, the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) sector is almost completely dominated by private establishments (Parry 2008). The term ‘donation’ is also employed in the specific case of reproductive cell donors, although apparently not in technical-legal terminology. However, if we analyse the animus donandi (understood as the psychological element underlying the act of donation) and we wonder whether it can really be traced back to solidarity with the community to which the subject belongs, the answer is far from obvious.