The Society for Developmental Biology (SDB) will host its annual meeting at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Chicago July 20-23, 2023. The meeting will provide an important opportunity to review the scientific and ethical dimensions of advances in developmental biology, including the development of embryo-like models from human stem cells.
Local meeting organizer and incoming SDB President-Elect Professor Carole LaBonne, PhD, Professor of Molecular Biosciences at Northwestern University, said “Embryonic development is the ultimate creation story.” Each of us was once a single cell that went on to generate trillions of cells of different types that self-organized into organs, and ultimately an organism. The sheer wonder of this process has fascinated scientists since the time of Aristotle.
The SDB’s annual meeting brings together nearly one thousand professional researchers and educators from around the world who study this fascinating process. Researchers will share their latest discoveries on all aspects of developmental biology, including stem cell biology, regeneration, birth defects and the evolution of animal body plans. SDB President and Program committee chair Victoria Prince, PhD, Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, said, “This is an exciting time for the field of developmental biology, and we will hear from researchers who are pursuing a wide range of new work.”
Dr. Jacob Hanna of the Weizmann Institute, Israel, will give a talk at the meeting about novel synthetic models of human development derived from stem cells. Hanna’s lab and several other groups have recently reported exciting advances in creating human embryo-like models. The embryo-like models are allowed to self-assemble from human stem cells, forming structures that resemble the different layers of the embryo as well as the placenta, which is required for the embryo to implant in the uterus and continue to grow. According to a recent preprint from the Hanna lab, the embryo-like models show key organizational “hallmarks” of post-implantation embryos that are 13-14 days old. While the models differ from human embryos in fundamental ways, lacking the capacity to generate a viable fetus, they can provide novel insights about human development, especially during the stages immediately after implantation that have been impossible to study until now. The new models may lead to clinical advances in the treatment of some birth defects as well as infertility.
As progress on embryo-like models is advancing rapidly, it is also important to consider the ethical questions this new area of research may raise. In particular, it is possible these models could continue to develop past the 14-day stage. This is significant because a rule that human embryos should not be cultured more than 14 days has long been respected across international boundaries. Whether the embryo-like models fall under this rule is currently unclear.
The SDB has a long history of thoughtful consideration of ethical issues. In 2015, the Society released a position statement supporting a voluntary moratorium on all manipulation of pre-implantation human embryos by genome editing. The upcoming Chicago meeting will host a timely symposium focused on ethical issues impacting current developmental biology research, centered on new advances in studying and manipulating development, including of humans and human-derived cells. The symposium will feature Professor Janet Rossant from the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, a renowned developmental biologist and member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s working group on human embryo models. The meeting will also include a related workshop on the teaching of ethical issues in developmental biology.
SDB also plays an important role in scientific outreach to the public. In association with this meeting, a public outreach event will be held at the Museum of Science and Industry at the popular Genetics Exhibit on July 20. The exhibit will include stations with live developing amphibian and zebrafish embryos, allowing members of the public to witness developmental processes firsthand and discuss what they are seeing with scientists from the Society.
