By: Yuer Li

When researchers successfully created synthetic mouse embryos without sperm (male reproductive cell) or an egg (a vessel to incubate or keep the embryo warm), they helped “open a window into a fascinating, potentially fraught realm of science that could replace organs for humans.”

Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science developed synthetic embryos that resembled actual mouse embryos, complete with beating hearts, blood circulation, folded brain tissue, and intestinal tracts. And remember, this is all artificial, meaning that everything is manmade. Scientists can use this information to study how organs form and witness the earliest stages of embryonic development.

“Although the synthetic mouse embryos bore a close resemblance to natural mouse embryos, they were not exactly the same and did not implant or result in pregnancies in real mice,” said Jacob Hanna, the stem cell scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science who led the work.

Eventually, could the artificial models be exactly the same as the real ones? And when will that happen?

Researchers at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona believe that the research into growing a mouse is only proof that embryos can be manmade.

“It’s an interesting next step, not shocking, but one that makes more plausible in the long run a proposition with broad implications: the possibility of turning any mouse cell into a living mouse,” said Henry T. Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford Law School. However, researchers are stopped from continuing to study the embryos because the International Society for Stem Cell Research has a limit for how long you can grow an embryo— 14 days in a laboratory.

Although the synthetic mouse embryos bore a close resemblance to natural mouse embryos, they were not exactly the same and did not implant or result in pregnancies in real mice, according to Jacob Hanna.

Article Link: *Scientists create synthetic mouse embryos, a potential key to healing humans – The Washington Post.pdf