Scientists at the University of Cambridge have created the world’s first “synthetic” embryo that has a brain, a beating heart and the building blocks for every other organ in the body, a New York Post report said. The embryo has been created from mouse stem cells, the outlet further reported. According to a university release, instead of using eggs or sperm, a team led by Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz created the embryo model using stem cells, which are the body’s stem cells and can differentiate into almost any type of cell. Ms Zernicka-Goetz is Professor of Mammalian Development and Stem Cell Biology in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience at Cambridge. The three different types of stem cells present in early mammalian development have reached the stage where they begin to interact, mimicking natural processes in the laboratory. The researchers were able to get the stem cells to “talk” to each other by turning on the production of a specific set of genes and creating a special environment for their interactions, the release further said. “Our mouse embryo model not only develops a brain, but also a beating heart, all the components that make up the body,” the researcher was quoted as saying in the release. “It’s just incredible that we’ve come this far. This has been the dream of our community for years, and the main focus of our work for a decade and we’ve finally done it,” he added. In order to understand why some pregnancies fail and others succeed, Professor Zernicka-Goetz’s team at the University of Cambridge has been researching these early stages of pregnancy for the past decade. “The stem cell embryo model is important because it gives us access to the developing structure at a stage that is normally hidden from us due to the implantation of the tiny embryo in the mother’s uterus,” Ms. Zernicka-Goetz further said. Scientists have discovered that extraembryonic cells communicate with embryonic cells not only chemically but also mechanically or by touch in order to direct the development of the embryo.
