Research Library

It now seems technically feasible to culture human embryos beyond the “fourteen‐day limit,” which has the potential to increase scientific understanding of human development and perhaps improve infertility treatments. Robust stakeholder engagement preceded adoption of the fourteen‐day limit and should arguably be part of efforts to reassess it, write the authors.

A relatively new set of financial services called “microfinance” provides what appears to be a sustainable way of supplying access to capital to the poor. This article provides a brief history of microfinance, discusses the ongoing integration of microfinance institutions into the global capital markets, and surveys the challenges that now confront these organizations in becoming sustainable enterprises with social as well as commercial objectives.