Laboratories on several continents are growing three-dimensional clusters of human brain tissue, fusing them into multi-region structures that form circuits, and transplanting them into rodent brains. Outside of animal cruelty statutes, which apply only once tissue is inside an animal, there are effectively no legal limits anywhere in the world on what can be done with human neural organoids.
That is not a fringe claim. It is the situation described by bioethicist Insoo Hyun and colleagues in a STAT report, and it is why 17 scientists and ethicists used a Science commentary in November to call for an international body to monitor the field. "Currently, we're not set up to deal with that," Hyun told STAT.
