Ethics and Governance of Human Brain Organoids Research and Application

人脑类器官研究和应用的伦理与治理

Abstract

Human brain organoids provide a high-quality model for exploring mechanisms of the cognition, development and disease in the human brain. However, while triggering a revolutionary leap in human brain biomedical research, it will also trigger a series of new crises in life technology ethics and new challenges in classical ethical issues, mainly involving moral status of human brain organoids, moral humanization of animal/non-living entity and ethical issues related to human brain organoids biobanks. Based on ethical norms analysis, it is recommended to analyze the above-mentioned ethical dilemmas in depth and classify human brain organoids research and application for ethical governance: conduct routine reviews for low-risk research and applications, and add expert review procedures for high-risk research and applications.It also calls for the research community to collaborate, fully discuss, and jointly review in order to solve the ‘Colin Grinch dilemma’ and guide responsible innovation in human brain organoids research and application.