Researchers in Israel have created a synthetic mouse embryos without an egg or sperm. They will grow them in an artificial womb for 8 days, a development that opens a window into a fascinating, and potentially fraught realm of science that could one day help heal humans. The goal wasn’t to create babies without a womb, but to make a better understanding of how organs develop and new ways to heal people.
Starting as a clump of embryonic stem cells, scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science created synthetic embryos that closely resembled real mouse embryos. This included basic beating hearts, blood circulation, folded brain tissue and intestinal tracts. The mouse embryos grew in an artificial womb and stopped developing after eight days, about a third of a mouse pregnancy. Scientists can use these models to investigate the earliest stages of embryonic development and to study how organs form. They are still developing these models to make them more advanced.
“The mouse is a starting point for thinking about how one wants to approach this in humans,” said Alex Meissner, a stem cell biologist at Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics. “It’s not necessary to be alarmed or raise any panic, but … as we learn, it’s important to have in parallel the discussion: How far do we want to take it?” For decades, the major hope for stem cell therapy has been to repair the body’s own tissues. Stem cells can develop into any tissue or organ, so the potential to use those cells to fix spinal cord injuries, patch damaged hearts or cure diabetes is higher. Now, they are trying to develop this method and make it better so they can possibly heal people.
Starting as a clump of embryonic stem cells, scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science created synthetic embryos that closely resembled real mouse embryos. This included basic beating hearts, blood circulation, folded brain tissue and intestinal tracts. The mouse embryos grew in an artificial womb and stopped developing after eight days, about a third of a mouse pregnancy. Scientists can use these models to investigate the earliest stages of embryonic development and to study how organs form. They are still developing these models to make them more advanced.
“The mouse is a starting point for thinking about how one wants to approach this in humans,” said Alex Meissner, a stem cell biologist at Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics. “It’s not necessary to be alarmed or raise any panic, but … as we learn, it’s important to have in parallel the discussion: How far do we want to take it?” For decades, the major hope for stem cell therapy has been to repair the body’s own tissues. Stem cells can develop into any tissue or organ, so the potential to use those cells to fix spinal cord injuries, patch damaged hearts or cure diabetes is higher. Now, they are trying to develop this method and make it better so they can possibly heal people.