Moral Status and the Oversight of Research Involving Chimeric Animals

The use of nonhuman animals in research has long been a source of bioethical and scientific debate. We consider the oversight and use of nonhuman animals in chimeric research. We conducted interviews with twelve members of embryonic stem cell research oversight committees, nine members of institutional animal care and use committees, and fourteen scientists involved in human–nonhuman‐animal chimeric research in different areas of the United States. Interviews addressed animal welfare and conceptual issues associated with moral status and humanization of nonhuman animals that contain human cells. Our findings suggest that concepts of enhanced moral status and consciousness are not very useful in human–nonhuman‐animal chimeric research in part because their meanings are not easily defined, which presents challenges to applying the concepts in research. Instead, scientists and oversight committee members we interviewed seemed to rely on standard assessments of changes in animal welfare when focusing on the ethics of human‐animal chimeric research

Animal ethics · Animal rights · Animal testing · Animal welfare · Bioethics · Biology · Engineering ethics · Environmental ethics · Human research · Political science · Research ethics · Sociology · Animal testing and alternatives · Biomedical Ethics and Regulation · Law · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations

• Clarifying the Ethics and Oversight of Chimeric Research

  Open Access•Josephine Johnston, Insoo Hyun et al.•The Hastings Center Report•2022

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• The Human Right to Science

  Shepard Forman, Cesare P R Romano et al.•The Human Right to Science•2024

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• Human‐Animal Chimeras

  Open Access•Julian Koplin, Julian J Koplin•The Hastings Center Report•2019

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