A CUSTODY battle over 93 preserved human embryos has prevented the
specimens, which are among the best available, being used as part of a library
of embryo images to be published on the Internet.
The Visible Embryo is a project to place around 200 three-dimensional
reconstructions of human embryos on the Internet, organised by the US National
Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington DC. Each one will show a slightly
different stage of the first eight weeks of development. The embryos come from
the Carnegie Collection of Human Embryology, which is housed in the health and
medicine museum. There are few such collections in the world, partly because of
a shortage of suitable embryos鈥攖hose from normal abortions are often
damaged.
So far, cross sections of 20 embryos have been digitised and processed for
the library. The Visible Embryo is the intellectual offspring of the Visible Man
and Visible Woman projects, which placed similar three-dimensional constructions
of a man and woman onto the Internet.
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The disputed embryos were assembled by Erich Blechschmidt, formerly head of
the embryology department at the University of G枚ttingen in Germany. The
fact that a dispute over its ownership has prevented the collection鈥檚 inclusion
in the Visible Embryo is ironic, as one of the project鈥檚 main goals was to
circumvent problems in gaining access to closely-guarded specimens that have
dogged research in the field. 鈥淩ight now, we take a lot on faith,鈥� says Don
Hilbelink, an anatomist at the University of Southern Florida in Tampa.
Blechschmidt collected the embryos over several decades, starting in the
1950s. They had all implanted outside the uterus, and so had to be removed for
the safety of their mothers. The embryos are preserved as a series of thin
slices, mounted on glass slides. In 1975, Blechschmidt gave the collection to
Raymond Gasser of the Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans,
and asked that it be incorporated into the Carnegie collection when Gasser
completed his studies.
But in the late 1980s, Blechschmidt changed his mind and asked Gasser to
return the embryos to G枚ttingen once his own work was finished.
Blechschmidt died in 1992, but his successor, Gerd Steding, has continued to
demand the return of the collection. 鈥淚t was clear that these embryos were on
loan, and that they were the property of this university,鈥� says Steding.
Gasser disagrees. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 make a commitment at one time, and then change
your mind years down the road,鈥� he says. But earlier this month, Adrianne Noe,
coordinator of the Visible Embryo project and director of the National Museum of
Health and Medicine, agreed to send the three embryos the museum had already
received from Gasser back to G枚ttingen. And now that the specimens are not
going to be included in the Visible Embryo, Gasser says he will return the rest
of the Blechschmidt collection. 鈥淓ven without the Blechschmidt samples it will
still be a very good image library,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut these embryos would have been
additional, beautiful books.鈥�
Steding admits that the battle is typical of a field in which most
researchers are extremely reluctant to let go of their specimens. 鈥淗uman
material is absolutely rare, and truly valuable,鈥� he says. Steding adds that
G枚ttingen does plan eventually to digitise images of the embryos so that
they can be made available in electronic form. So there is a chance that the
Carnegie and Blechschmidt collections will one day be united in cyberspace.