Scientists this week announced the creation of the world’s first synthetic human embryo using stem cells a breakthrough that could potentially lead to egg and spermfree reproduction in the future.
The development of this model similar to a natural human embryo in its early stages of development is a tool that can enable major advances in many different areas of medicine, such as the study of genetic diseases and the determination of the biological causes of recurrent miscarriages, to name but two to name examples.
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Professor Magdalena ZernickaGoetz from the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, the English acronym) presented the work on Wednesday (14) at the annual meeting of the International Society for Research with Stem Cells. in Boston, United States.
The study has not yet been published in any scientific journal, which is likely to happen in the coming months. “By reprogramming embryonic stem cells, we have succeeded in creating models that resemble human embryos,” the scientist announced in the plenum, according to the British BBC.
However, the work raises important ethical and legal questions, since the creation of an embryo in the laboratory is not provided for in current legislation. Although the structure does not have a heart or brain, it does have stem cells that would be capable of forming the entire embryo if their development were stimulated.
There is no short or medium term perspective that synthetic embryos can be used clinically. It would be illegal to implant them in a woman’s uterus, for example, and it’s still not entirely clear whether the structure would continue to develop beyond the embryonic stage. Synthetic mouse embryos implanted in a woman’s uterus, for example, did not result in pregnancy.
The main goal of the work, as Magdalena explains, is to understand what happens during a phase of embryonic development that scientists call the ‘black box’.
In most countries, it is a legal requirement to only cultivate human embryos in the laboratory for up to 14 days precisely for ethical reasons. After this time, scientists can only follow embryonic development much further by performing ultrasound scans of pregnant women. In his presentation at the conference, ZernickaGoetz explained that he had managed to grow the synthetic embryo past 14 days.
“The idea is that with a stem cell human embryo model, you can get a lot of information about what happens in the early stages of embryonic development, including what can go wrong, without having to use human embryos,” explained in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, the specialist in stem cell biology and genetic development Robin LovellBadge from the Francis Crick Institute in London.
Stem cells are the first to emerge during embryonic development. Certain cell lines are formed from them. Scientists have known how to get stem cells to transform into specific cells for at least a decade.
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