Ethically Sourced 'Spare' Human Bodies Could Revolutionize Medicine

In an op-ed for MIT Technology Review, authors Carsten T. Charlesworth, Henry T. Greely, and Hiromitsu Nakauchi make the case for human 'bodyoids' that could reduce animal testing, improve drug development, and alleviate organ shortages: Why do we hear about medical breakthroughs in mice, but rarely see them translate into cures for human disease? Why do so few drugs that enter clinical trials receive regulatory approval? And why is the waiting list for organ transplantation so long? These challenges stem in large part from a common root cause: a severe shortage of ethically sourced human bodies. It may be disturbing to characterize human bodies in such commodifying terms, but the unavoidable reality is that human biological materials are an essential commodity in medicine, and persistent shortages of these materials create a major bottleneck to progress.

This imbalance between supply and demand is the underlying cause of the organ shortage crisis, with more than 100,000 patients currently waiting for a solid organ transplant in the US alone. It also forces us to rely heavily on animals in medical research, a practice that can't replicate major aspects of human physiology and makes it necessary to inflict harm on sentient creatures. In addition, the safety and efficacy of any experimental drug must still be confirmed in clinical trials on living human bodies. These costly trials risk harm to patients, can take a decade or longer to complete, and make it through to approval less than 15% of the time.

There might be a way to get out of this moral and scientific deadlock. Recent advances in biotechnology now provide a pathway to producing living human bodies without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware, or feel pain. Many will find this possibility disturbing, but if researchers and policymakers can find a way to pull these technologies together, we may one day be able to create 'spare' bodies, both human and nonhuman. These could revolutionize medical research and drug development, greatly reducing the need for animal testing, rescuing many people from organ transplant lists, and allowing us to produce more effective drugs and treatments. All without crossing most people's ethical lines.

Although it may seem like science fiction, recent technological progress has pushed this concept into the realm of plausibility. Pluripotent stem cells, one of the earliest cell types to form during development, can give rise to every type of cell in the adult body. Recently, researchers have used these stem cells to create structures that seem to mimic the early development of actual human embryos. At the same time, artificial uterus technology is rapidly advancing, and other pathways may be opening to allow for the development of fetuses outside of the body. Such technologies, together with established genetic techniques to inhibit brain development, make it possible to envision the creation of 'bodyoids' -- a potentially unlimited source of human bodies, developed entirely outside of a human body from stem cells, that lack sentience or the ability to feel pain.

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