A ‘synthetic’ embryo with a brain and beating heart has been created by British scientists.
It features the foundations of all the body’s organs–including neural and gut tubes that protect the developing spine and intestines. The “world first” could solve the donor shortage crisis and prevent miscarriages. It will also reduce animal experimentation. Cambridge University researchers used a combination of stem cells from mice–without fertilized eggs or sperm.
Lead author Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz said: “Our mouse embryo model not only develops a brain, but also a beating heart, all the components that go on to make up the body. It’s just unbelievable that we’ve got this far. This has been the dream of our community for years, and major focus of our work for a decade and finally we’ve done it.”
