Researchers create synthetic early-stage human embryos from stem cells, without egg or sperm
Scientists have succeeded in doing an end run around eggs and sperm to create an embryo with human components out of stem cells, researchers revealed at a conference Wednesday.
The synthetic versions are similar to the earliest stages of embryonic development and were created to help scientists research genetic disorders, said Professor Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz, of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology.
“We can create human embryo-like models by the reprogramming of [embryonic stem] cells,” she said Wednesday at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Boston, according to The Guardian.
The proto-embryos were cultivated to a stage just past 14 days of development for a natural embryo, Żernicka-Goetz said. The synthetic version did not yet have organs or a brain, but did contain primordial cells that predicate egg and sperm, she said.
The research is not yet published in a journal.
The embryos are far from becoming actual humans, but their creation raises legal and moral implications because current laws around the world do not address the possibility that they could. Research on actual embryos poses ethical constraints, Żernicka-Goetz said, and are rarely donated for research.
Last year, scientists created slightly more developed mouse embryos using their stem cells — research that Zernicka-Goetz was also involved in. She said back then that the goal is to gain insight into recurrent miscarriages, most of which occur at this early stage of development, without doing research on actual embryos.
Such research could also shed light on why up to 70% of in vitro fertilization attempts fail.
With News Wire Services
