Daniel Omire-Mayor said he felt bad about the death of his chicken embryo.

Penn State students like Omire-Mayor (sophomore-life sciences) who are taking or have taken Biology 240W (Function and Development of Organisms) perform a lab using chicken embryos.

One of the experiments of the lab requires students to open an egg and remove the embryo from the yolk. Students then test the effect of either caffeine or alcohol on the embryo's heart.

All of the embryos are discarded after the lab is completed. They die either from the effects of the drugs or from being removed from the egg.

Omire-Mayor said he tried to save his embryo by removing the drug with a pipette and using saline solution to absorb the drug.

"I didn't want to kill it," he said.

Some may question the use of healthy embryos for research and experimentation.

A recent Illinois court ruling regarding the accidental disposal of unimplanted human embryos by a fertility clinic allows the parents to sue under the state's Wrongful Death Act.

In January 2000, Alison Miller and Todd Parrish stored nine embryos at the Center for Human Reproduction in Chicago. Their doctor said one embryo looked promising, but the Chicago couple was told six months later that the embryos had been accidentally discarded.

"They should be allowed to sue," Omire-Mayor said, because the embryo could have developed into a human.

Brad Fesi (sophomore-neurology), a Biology 240W student, said he doesn't believe the couple should be able to take legal action with the Wrongful Death Act.

"I wouldn't say they have the right to sue under the Wrongful Death Act but a medical malpractice law," Fesi said.

Because the case was in an Illinois court, the ruling doesn't have any implications in Pennsylvania, said LeDon Young, a family law attorney at Nollau and Young, 2153 E. College Ave.

The major burden of this case is whether or not the unimplanted embryos are considered "life." For the Wrongful Death Act to be violated, the embryos would have to be considered life, she said.

This is an example of "centuries-old English common law trying to catch up to 21st century technology," she said.

Sherifat Famosa (junior-psychology), a Biology 240W student, said she was shocked that the clinic could make such a mistake.

"How do you accidentally throw out somebody's eggs?" Famosa said. "In-vitro fertilization is very expensive. It is a one-in-a-million chance."

However, she said she was indifferent regarding the death of her chicken embryo in the lab.

"I am not trying to sound inhumane, but they are two different things," she said.

Mitch Price, assistant professor of biology and course coordinator for Biology 240W, said he believes the definition of biology is to study life with a living organism.

"Early anatomists studied cadavers, but to get at the function aspect, you have to look at live animals," he said.

Living humans are never used in labs, but "chicks and sea urchins are classic model organisms to study early development," he said. This is because the early development of these creatures is similar to that of humans.

The use of animals in labs must be within the parameters of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee's rules, Price said. It is important that researchers are sensitive to the animals, he added.

Fesi said he really didn't care about the chicken embryos and doesn't see a problem using them in lab if they are used to further education in science.

Biology 240W student Erin Kirby (sophomore-animal science) said she didn't think it was beneficial to test the effects of caffeine on the embryo because she already knew that the heartbeat would increase.

"I did feel bad but there was nothing you could do," she said. "It is not like it's a human."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.