Scientists from the Weizmann Institute in Israel created the worldʼs first synthetic embryos.
The Guardian writes about it.
Scientists have discovered that stem cells in mice can be made to self-assemble into early embryo-like structures with an intestinal tract, rudiments of a brain, and a beating heart.
Synthetic embryos, which are created without fertilized eggs, will soon help to better understand how organs and tissues form during the development of natural embryos. But the researchers believe it could also reduce animal testing and ultimately pave the way to new sources of cells and tissues for transplants.
Last year, the same team built a mechanical uterus that allowed natural mouse embryos to grow outside the uterus for several days. In the current work, the same method was used to grow mouse stem cells for more than a week, which is almost half of a mouseʼs gestation period.
While most stem cells failed to form embryo-like structures, about 0.5% of them coalesced into small balls that grew individual tissues and organs. As far as scientists could judge, these organs were functioning.
Professor Jacob Hanna, who led the study, said the synthetic embryos were not ʼrealʼ embryos and had no potential to develop into living animals, or at least not when they were transplanted into the wombs of female mice.
"Synthetic human embryos are not an immediate prospect. We know less about human embryos than mouse embryos and the inefficiency of the mouse synthetic embryos suggests that translating the findings to human requires further development," said Dr James Briscoe, principal team leader at the Francis Crick Institute in London. He also drew attention to the fact that before proceeding to the next stage of research, it is necessary to discuss the ethical side of such research.