In the first week after a human egg has been fertilized, it develops into a hollow ball of 200 cells called an embryo, which puts itself onto the walls of the uterus. In the next three weeks, it divides into distinct tissues of the human body.
After those first four weeks, the rest is mostly unknown. Jacob Hanna, a developmental biologist at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel says that scientists know the basics, but they do not know the details.
Biologists are trying to learn these details by coaxing stem cells to organize themselves into clumps that take on some of the crucial hallmarks of real embryos. Stem cells are the cells in the human body that can turn into many other types of cells.
This June,. Hanna’s team as well as groups in Britain, the US, and China, released reports on these experiments with stem cells. The studies have yet to be published in scientific journals but have already gained scientists’ interest in this study.
Ethicists have cautioned that the use of embryo models would further complicate the regulation of the research, but the scientists behind this work were quick to say that these embryos could not become a living human being.
Tianqing Li, a developmental biologist at Kunming University of Science and Technology in China says that their goal is not human reproduction, but for research instead.
. Li also hopes that these embryo models could lead to new treatments for infertility and cancer. “We do it to save lives, not create it,” said Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a developmental biologist at the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology.
Before this development, scientists had to get human embryos for research from miscarriages or abortions, but now, they can make their own. This means that scientists can break the 14-day limit, or the amount of time scientists can keep their embryos alive before the embryos die out by themselves. With “artificial” embryos, however, the embryos may be able to be kept alive for longer than 14 days for research.
This way of studying human embryos is still very new, and biologists are still trying to make it more reliable by finding better ways to make human embryos for research purposes.
After those first four weeks, the rest is mostly unknown. Jacob Hanna, a developmental biologist at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel says that scientists know the basics, but they do not know the details.
Biologists are trying to learn these details by coaxing stem cells to organize themselves into clumps that take on some of the crucial hallmarks of real embryos. Stem cells are the cells in the human body that can turn into many other types of cells.
This June,. Hanna’s team as well as groups in Britain, the US, and China, released reports on these experiments with stem cells. The studies have yet to be published in scientific journals but have already gained scientists’ interest in this study.
Ethicists have cautioned that the use of embryo models would further complicate the regulation of the research, but the scientists behind this work were quick to say that these embryos could not become a living human being.
Tianqing Li, a developmental biologist at Kunming University of Science and Technology in China says that their goal is not human reproduction, but for research instead.
. Li also hopes that these embryo models could lead to new treatments for infertility and cancer. “We do it to save lives, not create it,” said Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a developmental biologist at the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology.
Before this development, scientists had to get human embryos for research from miscarriages or abortions, but now, they can make their own. This means that scientists can break the 14-day limit, or the amount of time scientists can keep their embryos alive before the embryos die out by themselves. With “artificial” embryos, however, the embryos may be able to be kept alive for longer than 14 days for research.
This way of studying human embryos is still very new, and biologists are still trying to make it more reliable by finding better ways to make human embryos for research purposes.
