Stem cell breakthrough: One step closer to creating artificial embryos

Stem cell breakthrough: One step closer to creating artificial embryos. In the future, human embryos may be created in a similar way.

A research team composed of international scientists, after using mouse stem cells to create a structure that can take a crucial step in the development of life, is one step closer to making artificial embryos.

Experts said that the results of the study indicate that human embryos may be created in a similar way in the future-a step that will allow scientists to use artificial embryos instead of real embryos to study the earliest stages of human development.

The team is led by Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz from the University of Cambridge in the UK, and has previously created a simple structure similar to a mouse embryo in a laboratory dish. This work involves two types of stem cells and three-dimensional scaffolds that can grow.

But in new research published in the journal Nature Cell Biology on Monday, scientists have further developed this structure-using three types of stem cells-to achieve a process called gastrulation, which is the embryo An important step for cells to begin self-organizing into the correct structure.

“Our artificial embryos have experienced the most important events of life in a petri dish,” Zernicka-Goetz said in a statement about this work. “They are now very close to real embryos.”

She said the research team should now be able to better understand how these three types of stem cells interact to promote embryonic development. By experimenting with biological pathways that change cell types, they should be able to see how this affects the behavior of other cell types.

Zernicka-Goetz said: “Now we have a way to simulate embryonic development in a petri dish, so it is possible to accurately understand what is happening at this extraordinary period in the embryo’s life and why sometimes this process fails.”

Christophe Galichet, a senior research scientist at the Francis Crick Institute in the United Kingdom, was not directly involved in this work, but he believes this result is promising.

“Although (this study) did not use human stem cells, the idea that this technology could one day be used to study human early embryos is not far-fetched.” He said in an e-mail comment, “These self-assembled human embryos will be understood A valuable tool for early human development.”

(sourceinternet, reference only)

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