Ethical and societal implications of cellular health-monitoring devices

Sci Transl Med. 2020 May 27;12(545):eaax6924. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aax6924.

Anna Deplazes-Zemp^{1

2

3}, Martin Fussenegger^{1

2

3}, Nikola Biller-Andorno^{1

2

3}

¹ Anna Deplazes-Zemp is a senior researcher at the Ethics Research Institute at the University of Zürich, CH-8006 Zürich, Switzerland. Email: deplazes@ethik.uzh.ch.
² Martin Fussenegger is a Professor in the Department of Bio systems Science and Engineering, ETH Zürich and in the Faculty of Science, University of Basel, CH-4058 Basel, Switzerland. Email: fussenegger@bsse.ethz.ch.
³ Nikola Biller-Andorno is the Director of the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine at the University of Zürich, CH-8006 Zürich, Switzerland. Email: biller-andorno@ibme.uzh.ch.

Abstract

As cell engineering is used to develop new types of implanted health-monitoring devices, this may raise ethical issues for individuals and society.