Survival of the fittest is a well known theory presented by Charles Darwin. It suggests that organisms who are more adjusted to the environment surrounding them will become more successful in survival and reproduction. Considering this, if you had the opportunity to ensure your child was the cream of the crop, would you take it?

Why was I fascinated by this topic?

During a recent workshop relating to the law and ethics of replacement body parts, I was fascinated by the debate amongst the group. Specifically relating to ‘Engineering the ‘perfect’ child’, this is a debate brought upon by the altering of genes of an embryo (pre-implementation) using genetic engineering technology: CRISPR. After being split into small groups, with my group consisting of only scientists, it became clear that a lot of our thoughts and feelings towards the subject were very objective, looking purely at the scientific benefit. At the time this view seemed very rational however, after discussing it with some students from the social sciences, our eyes were opened to other perspectives i.e ethical concerns.

At the start of our discussion, I believed this advance in science, namely being able to alter genetics with a desired outcome, could provide life changing techniques to prevent illness in those who are susceptible. It therefore baffled me as to why someone wouldn’t want to beat genetic diseases. For example, being able to remove variations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which increases a woman’s chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer, where an offspring of parents carrying the gene has a 50% chance of obtaining the harmful mutation from either parent. Upon this case, my initial thought was that there would be elevated stress for the pair that would like to conceive, as they will carry the fear of passing this onto their child. So using this technology was surely a good thing. 

After these thoughts, I watched two videos, the first by the economist on the applications of this technology. A banana farmer, James, had his plantation hit with a disease called necrosis that wiped out entire populations of crops. As such, James spent lots of time genetically engineering bananas that withstand this disease, and prevent the fruit becoming extinct. The limiting factor here is societal views of genetic modifications, meaning people weren’t going to buy them. But why? 

The problems with CRISPR based genetic engineering

Discovering that this technology could be exploited in multiple ways changed my emotion towards it, I felt uncomfortable. Using this technology for cosmetic purposes, e.g. designing a child as if in a life simulation game seemed unnerving. Firstly, this provides further separation in economic classes. Enabling those who are wealthier to create more ‘ideal’ children to fit in current societal standards. Naturally, this will mean that those who have been conceived with idealistic appearances, will be born into wealthy families, and those who cannot afford to do this, will have natural babies that will inevitably, in time, be seen as inferior.

Taking into account both of these possibilities, I decided to further look into this stream of research and watched another video that delves deeper into the CRISPR process and its applications. A statement that stuck out to me in this video was that “.. a door is opened that can’t be closed’. CRISPR is an easy tool, further evidenced by Jennifer Doudna, a biologist who co-discovered how to use CRISPR to edit genes: “Any scientist with molecular biology skills and knowledge of how to work with [embryos] is going to be able to do this,”. Although easy, it doesn’t make it exceptionally accurate. There are possibilities that genes will be edited without intention to. This further poses the question that if an individual had their heart set on a certain child, how would they react to finding out it wasn’t exactly how they planned?

Final thoughts

This debate is far from over, and as time goes on, science will only advance more. It isn’t a case of who is right or wrong but more how we can ensure these technologies are used appropriately. Overall, this debate helped me reflect on my approach to scientific procedures, not only do I have to think about how it might be a great discovery for its intended use, but how it can cause further ethical questions. 

Resources mentioned:

Economist video: https://youtu.be/F7DpdOHRDR4 

CRISPR video: https://youtu.be/jAhjPd4uNFY 

Article on engineering humans: https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/03/05/249167/engineering-the-perfect-baby/ 

Inspired by the lectures on prosthetics, the impact that hip placements have on a patient’s quality and satisfaction of life really struck me. According to the arthritis society, 7% still suffer from moderate limitations and 20% report severe limitations 5 years post-surgery. Despite undergoing a second surgery, only 70% of patients reported that they were doing well.

So why are the 30% still suffering?

There are many minor reasons that hip replacements may fail:

• Wear and Tear: Constant wearing of prosthetics can cause the joint to become loose, requiring further surgery if the problem is severe
• Joint stiffening: soft tissues around the hip replacement become stiff and lead to reduced mobility
• Sensitivity to metal: inserting a ‘foreign’ substance into the body  

However, unfortunately, there are more serious factors which may be at play too:

• Aspect loosening: breakdown of the joint between implants, components and body. It can often cause the release of small particles and debris when the joint starts to wear out. The patient’s body may recognise the hip placement as a ‘foreign’ object. The patient’s immune system will identify these particles and attack them causing inflammation  
• Formation of blood clot: increases risk of thrombosis (including deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism)

A Personal View Point

Wanting to learn more, I contacted a family friend who has recently had her first hip replacement just over 5 months ago to understand what impact the replacement had on life post-surgery.. Prior to her surgery, she lived in discomfort for a long time, but recognised that her hip replacement had an extreme benefit on her quality of life (e.g. her low back pain  has reduced and she is able to sleep better. Recently, she had a second hip operation and is currently recovering. After having the second surgery, she remarks on the great benefit of the first hip replacement on her flexibility and mobility.  

However, despite the positives, she commented that the rehabilitation process is long, frustrating and slow. Your daily routine is disrupted from having to always sleep on your back, being unable to drive or exercise and work being impacted if you are unable to work from home.  Moreover, whilst she was happy with her access to pain relief, she suffered adverse events on opioids of constipation, which she argued was more painful than the hip operation itself.

The most interesting point we discussed was access to physiotherapy. She was fortunate enough to receive her hip replacement on the NHS, however, when comparing herself to a friend who had their hip replacement privately, she commented they had better access to in-person physio and rehabilitation help. I can’t help but think this raises all sorts of ethical issues due to socio-economics factors. But does the NHS have the capacity to do more?

My Final Thoughts ….

Further to having a discussion, there were two points that stuck out to me. I’d love to research more into the rehabilitation process from start to finish (e.g a strict exercise regime to strengthen muscles, and improve balance and blood circulation). A good link for more about this topic is: Hip replacement recovery: timeline, tips and information | Spire Healthcare  . But finally, the most provoking revelation that I encountered was the equal access to healthcare during the rehabilitation process . The final parting question I have is – why doesn’t everyone receive the same level of treatment?

While nowadays we accept the exitance and necessity of bioethics we often overlook their origins. Despite being a physics student, I take a lot of interest in history and ethics so when we covered both these topics, I immediately decided I wanted to look further into it. This led me to the question of how the Nuremburg trials – specifically those for the Nazis doctors of concentration camps – led to the development of medical and bioethics.

Throughout WWII many number of atrocities were committed by the Nazis, but some may argue that the greatest were those crimes against humanity that were committed by doctors of the Nazi state. With ideas of eugenics becoming ever more popular and the Nazi want to eliminate those who they deemed didn’t contribute to the state, millions of innocent people were murdered, and thousands were subjected to medical experimentation. Now while this all sounds like a brief historical overview into the Nazi doctors we can use this information to see how out of this the first ideals of medical and bio ethics were created. Following then end of the war, Nazi leaders were tried at the Nuremburg trials, with there being a specific trial for the doctors who experimented on people in concentration camps throughout the war.

These doctors’ trials led to the creation of the Nuremburg code, a set of ethics rules for conducting medical and biological research. Prior to WWII the only previous outline to medical research ethics were the ‘Guidelines for Human Experimentation of 1931’ which the doctors asked to be tried under for their experimentation , but the prosecutors refused and came to the conclusion of trying 16 out of the 23 for crimes against humanity.

It has been said by some that if they had been in the same situation – a leading country in medical development with unlimited human subjects as resources and the propaganda to believe what they were doing is right – they would have done the same. Looking back now we know how awful this experimentation was and can’t even begin to imagine how someone could have concluded that it was okay. But at the time many Nazi doctors believed what they were doing was right and the growing ideals of eugenics pushed them to further what they thought was acceptable and ‘good’ research. There were many scientific advancements made to understanding different neurological diseases but in no way do the ends justify the means. This merely shows how much of a lack of guidelines behind research ethics there were as no patients were ever informed of what was happening and research was always carried out in the name of science without taking into consideration the person.

Following the Nuremburg trials the code was created as a way to highlight all that was wrong with the Nazi State’s  experimentation and lack of thought for life. They were the first outline for medical ethics, and in which highlighted the need for consent from patients and that the primary concern of doing no harm . While the Nuremburg code was somewhat ambiguous, and statements left open to interpretation, it did lead to the creation of the Declaration of Helsinki. This is an ever-changing document to lay out correct medical practice and ethics in research – bioethics. The Declaration of Helsinki is still to this day a widely respected and followed document for Drs across the globe to hold themselves to in their work and practice. So, we can see that from the atrocities of WWII, eugenics and Nazi experimentation came the creation of medical and bioethics that are followed today. This can all be summed from a quote in the Nuremburg code:

‘All contemporary debate on human experimentation is grounded in Nuremberg’

Nuremburg Code 1947

Imagine a world with no disease, where we can alter our genes to become the best version of ourselves. Maybe you want to be the most fit, have great health , or be the smartest. But at what cost are we willing to get to this?

Recently I watched the documentary Unnatural Selection on Netflix, which delved into the world of genetic editing, and touched on some of the dangers that may arise because of it. One particular issue it focused on what biohacking, which is when people use aspects of biology to change their body in some way. CRISPR, a new genetic editing technology, would allow people to do this easily at home. However, by making changes to the ones genetics, they are altering the the genetics of their offspring, which could possibly have detrimental effects in the future.

So, what is CRISPR?

CRISPR is one of the most versatile gene editing methods, so simple it is often described as cutting and pasting our genes. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. Essentially it works by removing a portion of a gene, and letting natural DNA repair systems take over.

Hundreds of studies are currently happening, in terms of how the technology can be used therapeutically, to treat a wide range of diseases, from HIV, blindness, and sickle cell anaemia.

Markus Mapara, MD, from Columbia University, used the CRISPR technology on a patient with sickle cell anaemia, a blood disorder. It is estimated that the disease affects 1 in every 2000 people in the UK, making it one most common genetic disorders in the UK. The genetic mutation causes the body to make an abnormal form of haemoglobin – a protein essential for red blood cells to deliver oxygen around the body. Currently the standard treatment is a bone marrow transplant, however this introduces the risk of infection and rejection. CRISPR is a new promising treatment that may be able to change the outcome for these patients.

So what’s the problem?

In a technology with such promising outcomes, it is hard to imagine why it may be a problem. But for ethicists, it has raised huge concern.

As I mentioned at the start, one of the main concerns brung up in the documentary was biohacking. The documentary goes into the story of Josiah Zayner, a formed NASA scientist. He injected himself with this technology, to grow his muscles. He stated that his motivation was to prove that CRISPR worked, and show the possibilities of gene editing. He believes that people should be able to get involved in science at home, and it shouldn’t just be down to scientists in labs. In addition to trying to grow his muscles, he also performed a full microbiome on himself, including a faecal transplant. The documentary Gut Hack goes into further detail of this, and the outcomes.

To most of us, this seems terrifying – injecting ourselves to permanently change our genes, without knowing the outcome. So why do biohackers do it? They all have different motivations, however the is a general consensus that they are frustrated with the slow progress and tight regulations around these technologies. They believe that they should be more accessible.

This moves onto another problem with the technology – accessibility. A problem that strikes those working on these technologies, is whether the people that need it, will be able to access it. The costs of the technology may be a barrier for those wanting the technology to cure disease. Rather those with money may be using it for enhancement purposes – to make them faster, be able to concentrate longer, be fitter, be smarter etc. However, this will only create a larger divide in society.

This leads of onto the issue of eugenics. Ethicists have concerns that IVF clinics may be able to access this technology, and use it to alter embryos. This was done by a Chinese scientist Jiankui He, who genetically altered the DNA of three embyros, who then developed into babies, including two twins. He was aiming to make the children immune to HIV, however this was deemed irresponsible and he was jailed for 3 years. (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/mar/06/forthcoming-genetic-therapies-serious-ethical-questions-experts)

So what’s the outcome?

The topic is very much up for debate within the science, political and ethical world, however I am going to conclude my current thoughts on the technology.

Looking from a utilitarian point of view, I am inclined to believe that the benefits of the technology will one day be more beneficial than the risks. However, I think a lot more regulations need to be put in place before this can happen.

The problem with making it easily accessible is biohackers, however with a lack of accessibility we create a societal divide and lean towards the world of eugenics. My idealist view would be to make it accessible through health care, and not make it a technology that is readily available to the public, however as the documentary Unnatural Selection discusses, this is a very idealist view.

Here is a short video clip of the documentary:

Due to a combination of academic interests including nano-fabrication, quantum physics and computer science; I began researching situations where quantum effects are used to interface with biological systems. It was down this line of inquiry I came across a research paper focused developing a novel form of pacemaker utilising light and microelectronics. Currently a pacemaker is a capacitor that discharges its electrical current to the heart. This leads to altering the pace of the hearts beating. The device also uses electricity to monitor the heart’s beating.  

The widespread adoption of pacemakers has saved an enormous number of lives. This is due to a multitude of heart conditions affecting the rhythmic beating of the heart. 50,000 people are fitted with a pacemaker every year in the UK. The first internal pacemaker was implanted in the UK in the 1960s. The first pacemakers were traumatic to implant and difficult to live with but subsequent advances combining the physics of the devices with the surgical methods used has led to the standard pacemaker being the size of a match box being implanted under local anaesthesia.

The increasing capability of microelectronics especially is allowing more in vivo studies of complete pacemaker devices in rodents. This has the potential to allow more novel technologies to be trialled. 

Researchers at the university of Arizona have developed a pacemaker that has a flower shape and uses light to stimulate the heart. Optogenetic stimulation utilizes light photons to activate excitable tissue. The circuitry integrated into the device also has the capacity to be loaded with machine learning algorithms, these would be especially useful in this kind of device as electrical sensing can be used simultaneously with photo stimulation to continually monitor the hearts beating. The device could then alter the timing of its stimulation to avoid latency that would reduce the performance of the heart. Another reason electrical stimulation may not be the optimum solution is that it causes damage to the stimulation site and is not specific to the cells that need to be stimulated, causing discomfort (although most users stop feeling the pulsing). 

This research is being done in a major part to the miniaturization of the pacemaker devices allowing trials on rodents that could not be achieved before.  

The device used an array of 9 micro-LEDs. And 8 22 micro-Farad Capacitors in parallel to achieve desired capacitance. It was powered by magnetic resonant coupling; this allowed the subjects to move freely within the magnetic field. The device used infra-red report data back wirelessly.  

If a form of this device makes it to human trials, it will not just have to demonstrate the effectiveness and safety of the system. There is also more scope for things to go wrong both within the device and when it interacts with external magnetic fields, as the system will present more potential points of failure. The more complicated the devices are electronically the more maintenance will be required. The electronics would more than likely need to be hard coded as a strong enough magnetic field would totally wipe many forms of non-volatile storage. The use of micro-LEDs also poses physical challenges due to the proximity required to the target cells of complex electronics as opposed to an electrode feeding from a device implanted next to the heart. 

A pacemaker is much more critical to a person’s moment to moment survival than other more periphery devices such as a replacement pancreas. So, there must be some certainty that the device equals or surpasses the abilities of the current pacemakers in use in its most basic objective of long-term patient survival. 

Protistic limbs are life-changing technology for those who have lost limbs through various causes. It became clear that there was a lot of focus on protistic legs and technologies to make them as comfortable and life-like as possible. The engineers have managed to design such a personalized model for making the legs, they can alter the types of legs for the different lifestyles and needs of the patients.

Arm and hand protistic seemed to be a lot more complicated due to the nature of hands having such complex sensory and dexterity properties. This got me thinking about how they can improve the technology, with sensors to help with gaining back complete function. While looking online about the research going on into hand and arm protistic, I came across a man who had recently had a double forearm and hand transplant. I was surprised and interested in this, the fact that they can transplant arms from donors and that this works giving patients back the use of hands that they have lost.

In the UK there is a specialist hand transplant team located at Leeds hospital. In a BBC documentary that has just come out called “Saving lives in Leeds”, in episode one they follow a story of a man who has a double hand transplant. In the documentary, the surgeon talks about the complexity of the surgery and the risk of rejection. Organ donors have always been something that I have known about, so many people would give consent for loved ones to donate a kidney or liver, or heart when they pass away but it had never occurred to me that someone would donate their hands.

The intricate nature of the function of the hands is important to maintain when doing a transplant otherwise it isn’t worth it for the patient. In Saving lives in Leeds the head surgeon talks about how they must connect the blood vessels and replace and sew together bones to allow the donor limb to become part of the recipient’s body. The hands regain sensory over a minimum period of 3 years. The nerve regeneration takes up to 6 weeks before patients start getting feeling in their new limb.

In the documentary, the mother of the patient touches on the impact that this will have on her son’s life. The ability to have full functioning hands again, the doors that will re-open for him, and the quality of life he will now be able to have. The significance of someone’s family allowing the donation of hands is also mentioned. Hands are a very personal feature of our bodies and to allow the donation of these to another person does not go unnoticed.

The UK’s first double hand transplant happened in 2016 at Leeds Hospital with a patient called Chris King. The YouTube video below is him talking about his experience of how a double hand transplant has changed his life.

Listening to these peoples’ stories and reading more about how these procedures are done, got me thinking about how I would feel if someone was to ask my permission for my loved one’s hands or if I would want someone to have my own. It is such a life-changing thing that some can do for another, it is like consenting to a kidney, liver, or heart but in some way, it feels a lot more personal. An interesting and thought-provoking transplant that will hopefully inspire more of these life-changing surgeries. It made me think of all the potential for other body parts that might be able to transplant in the future, such as legs, ones we’ve never thought of before.

Type 1 diabetes is a prevalent chronic illness with 1.4 million new cases in the USA per year. (ADA). It is a product of an insufficiency of insulin, caused by the autoimmune destruction of the insulin-secreting pancreatic β-cells. There is no current cure for Type 1 diabetes, however, there are a number of treatments to help cope with it.

Islets of Langerhans are cells from human donors in the pancreas that secrete insulin and glucose and can continually control blood sugar levels when implanted in the liver. Islet transplantation for diabetes has shown to be less invasive and result in fewer complications in comparison to traditional transplantations.

One potential cure for Type 1 diabetes is human embryonic stem cells (hES), which are cells that have the ability to efficiently and rapidly differentiate and are functionally similar to adult human islets. This suggests that hES cells may be a  renewable supply of human β-cells that can aid to the development of cell therapy for diabetes (Kroon et al. 2008). A limitation in this domain is that there is a scarcity of donor tissue (Champeris Tsaniras and Jones, 2010), which can restrict the use of such therapies. This reflects the need for more donors to help treat those with this chronic illness.

In more recent literature, protocols have been created/improved to drive human pluripotent stem cell–derived pancreatic β cell growth (SC-β cells) through the stages of its development (definitive endoderm, primitive gut tube, pancreatic progenitors, endocrine, and β cells). Hogrebe et al. (2021) postulated the importance of the influence of microenvironment and cytoskeletal signalling on endocrine induction (both of which can influence the generation of these cells) that generate highly functional SC-β cells.

This not only simplifies differentiation methodology, but also improves outcomes for multiple cell lines. This is advantageous as cell lines have a longer life span, proliferate more quickly and are easily manipulated. These are important for complex tissues and allow for better examinations of alterations in structure, genetic makeup, and biology of the cell. Using this new information, Hogrebe et al. (2021) created the six-stage SC-β cell differentiation protocol for generating highly functional SC-β cells. This protocol recreates stages of embryonic development to achieve high SC-β cells maturity and differentiation efficiency. A limitation to note, however, is that this multi-stage process takes 5 weeks to complete, which can create possible problems that affect the successful generation of stage SC-β cells. Despite this, this paper has lay the groundwork for effectively generating stage SC-β cells from cell lines that didn’t work for other protocols. Overall, this has posed a positive impact on this research field and has pathed the way for improved protocols for cell generation and potential cures for Type 1 diabetes.

Final considerations:

Earlier in the module, my interest was captured when the lecturer mentioned stem cells and diabetes in week 2. With family attachments to diabetes, I felt an appeal to research further into this field. I never fully understood the burden diabetes can have on an individual, and I feel as if others don’t quite understand either. Therefore, reading more into this literature has only enriched my knowledge further and given me the opportunity to better understand the struggle.

One aspect that sparked my interest when doing my research is that there are developments for potential cures, which I didn’t realise there could be one. With advancing technology anything is clearly possible!

My take home message from doing this research is to encourage more people to donate donor tissue to help those with diabetes and that bioengineering technology and developments are only growing, which gives hope to those currently suffering with this chronic illness.

Reference list:

Champeris Tsaniras, S., & Jones, P. M. (2010). Generating pancreatic β-cells from embryonic stem cells by manipulating signaling pathways, Journal of Endocrinology, 206(1), 13-26. Retrieved Mar 6, 2023, from https://joe.bioscientifica.com/view/journals/joe/206/1/13.xml

Hogrebe, N.J., Maxwell, K.G., Augsornworawat, P. et al. Generation of insulin-producing pancreatic β cells from multiple human stem cell lines. Nat Protoc 16, 4109–4143 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41596-021-00560-y

https://diabetes.org/about-us/statistics/about-diabetes#sthash.F8fRkPqd.dpuf#:~:text=Prevalence%3A%20In%202015%2C%2030.3%20million%20Americans%2C%20or%209.4%25,American%20children%20and%20adults%20have%20type%201%20diabetes. accessed 6th March, 2023.

Kroon, E. et al. Pancreatic endoderm derived from human embryonic stem cells generates glucose-responsive insulin-secreting cells in vivo. Nat. Biotechnol. 26, 443–452 (2008).

Xin-Xin Yu, Cheng-Ran Xu; Understanding generation and regeneration of pancreatic β cells from a single-cell perspective. Development 1 April 2020; 147 (7): dev179051. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.179051

“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”

Nuremberg Trials

During the last lecture of Engineering Replacement Body Parts, the main topic was bioethics. Although I was never introduced to this topic before, in high school I had already heard about the “Nuremberg Trials”, and their importance in condemning people responsible for such atrocities during World War II. This is the reason why I decided to write this post about this historical event that completely changed our views about scientific progress and research. 

Crimes against humanity

Crimes against humanity refer to specific crimes against a large-scale attack targeting civilians, regardless of their nationality. These can include persecution, murder, sexual violence, enslavement, torture, enforced disappearance, etc. Unlike genocide, crimes are not necessarily committed against a specific national, ethnical, racial or religious group. These crimes can also be committed in peacetime by legal State policies as well as non-State armed groups or paramilitary forces. 

Since the 1945 Nuremberg Charter, the list of crimes against humanity expanded via diverse international treaties, such as the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (1993), the Statute of the International Tribunal for Rwanda (1994) and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998). The Rome Statute is the most recent and expansive list of specific acts that may be considered against humanity.

Video introducing the Nuremberg Trials

18th October 1945

The International Military Tribunal (IMT) was composed of both Allied countries and representatives of Nazi-occupied countries and aimed at punishing the leaders and army of a regime. This was the first time in history. 22 Nazi Germany’s military, economic and political leaders were brought to trial in Nuremberg for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The tribunal delivered its judgement against the Nazi leaders on 30th September and 1st October 1946: 12 were sentenced to death, 3 to life imprisonment, 4 to imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years, and 3 were acquitted.

Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings

Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings were trials to determine the guilt for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity of defendants who represented many parts of German society, from jurists and politicians to businessmen, physicians, army officers and collaborators.

These trials included 23 leading German physicians and administrators who were accused of human experimentation utilising thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent or were involved in the Euthanasia Program. This programme aimed at systematically killing those they considered “unworthy of life” due to severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical disabilities. On 20th August 1947, after almost 140 days of proceedings, including the testimony of 85 witnesses and around 1,500 documents, the judges found 16 physicians guilty, and 7 were sentenced to death. 

I already knew about the Euthanasia Programme due to a school journey in Germany and Austria aimed at “experiencing” the journey of survivors of WWII. In this journey, I also visited an actual centre that was used during the Euthanasia Programme to exterminate all German and Austrian children with severe neurological disorders and autism: the “Hartheim Castle”. I still remember the net contrast between the appealing aspect of that castle and the very dark atmosphere inside.

In the ground floor of this castle, there is a very impressive memorial that was made after Americans occupied that place at the end of the war. This memorial is a continuous screen positioned along the walls and in the centre of a room. This screen quotes names of all people killed there, at least the ones we have memories of. These names were written very close to each other with a very small size, and still occupied an entire room. This view is still so vivid in memory and continues to impress me.  

While researching more about “crimes against humanity”, I realised that the Nuremberg code is not the only one that codifies specifically for crimes against humanity but there are more recent codes I had never heard of! Moreover, I had no idea about the existence of so many different types of crimes that can be considered against humanity. I thought that the only one was basically the extermination of part of society with specific traits or ethnicity (e.g., extermination of black people or Jewish). This proves that it is never wrong to reiterate such important ethical concepts. I felt also shocked by the very small number of people actually sentenced for those crimes, compared to the real number of people that should be held responsible. 

In conclusion, it is still incredible to me how the Nuremberg Trials, held more than 70 years ago, can still affect so much our scientific progress and research. I believe that this knowledge is essential for me to become a good biomedical scientist. I will always keep in mind this determining historical event while designing my own experiments as well as reviewing other scientists’ papers to avoid committing the errors of the past. That way, I can positively contribute to the scientific community in an ethical and respectful way. 

References

1. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “The Nuremberg Trials”: https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/the-nuremberg-trials

2. TRIAL International, “Crimes against humanity”: