Saturday 30 March 2019

The discovery of the great hope “Baby Grady”

What I read

The article “‘Baby Grady’ gives fertility hope to boys with cancer ”(2019) by James Gallagher reports that scientists have succeeded in giving birth to the monkey “Baby Grady” using sperm produced by cryopreserved testicular tissue, which is collected from removed immature testes of baby monkeys to be preserved before being engrafted under the skin of those monkeys having reached puberty. This might be a significant step in assisted reproductive technology for boys with cancer, who risk their reproductive ability as a result of cancer therapies. Despite the benefits, many experts suggested that it requires further research to confirm its safety before applying it to humans because there is a risk to those boys to have cancer again, if there are any cancer generators contaminated in the grafted tissue.

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My response 

One of scientist's duties is to find out a useful technology improving our life quality via doing a research. Many researches still isn't ready to be the technologies, while a few can reach a goal to solve any health problems and become innovations. This article reported the research, which attracted me at the first sight because it showed possibility to be a futuristic medical technology aiding many people who have a problem giving birth, but still want to have a complete family. Apart from that, the topic is very interesting for a biologist like me since I know well that it is too difficult and too dangerous for boys with cancer to have their children after cancer therapies, but through the result of this research, they are able to feel hopeful again about their future. These are reasons why I chose this wonderful topic to summarize.

 Because safety always come first, I totally agree that this result is just a preliminary, which requires further experiments to support before being used in humans. Although it can be a great hope for those patients, any possible side effects need to be considered. As far as effects on the animal is concerned, we can see that experimented monkeys lost ability to have natural breeding since they had been removed testes. Apart from interfering genetic variation of those monkeys by conducted matching, another issue is some monkeys losing testes permanently can not produce sperm to inherit their heredity to their children even after the experiment, and can not continue their lineage anymore. This means the most important life goal of those animals, which is to produce offspring, is terminated by human's hand. Despite a few negative effects, this is still a valuable research.                  
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My question

Nowadays, it is widely accepted to use an animal as a sample in scientific research, do you think doing an experiment with the animal is morally wrong, or not?  
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Reference

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3 comments:

  1. Peter.AUA4 April 2019 at 07:50

    I like how New's first paragraph gives a full explanation for his choice of article to summarize for us. He needed a paragraph that long to do the job well.

    But it's his exploration of the issues in the next paragraph that really interested me. In particular, I was wondering whether fulfilling the desires of a few humans is really a good enough reason to interfere with "the most important life goal of those animals [monkeys], which is to produce offspring, is terminated by human's hand." What, after all, makes human animals so much more valuable than other animals that we can do what we want to them merely to help ourselves? Are we really so different that it's OK to do to other animals what would be a serious crime if we did it to another human animal? New hints at these worries, and it is the question he directly asks as to respond to. I'm very interested to see what others think about this.

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  2. Sha sha6 April 2019 at 00:05

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Sha sha6 April 2019 at 00:12


    I agree that using an animal as a simple in scientific in research. I think doing an experiment with animal isn't morally wrong because it is useful for lots of people. In the other hand, if they use more animals than necessary, it is may be morally wrong. However, if they use animals as appropriate, I think it isn't morally wrong.

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