synthetic embryos

When does a human embryo model become the real thing & other tough questions for a new field

human embryo model mukul tewary sm

A human embryo model is a laboratory-produced collection of living cells that has some key things in common with real human embryos. They are made from pluripotent stem cells, which include embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells. This research is both exciting and ethically complicated, raising some difficult questions. Embryo …

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New lab-grown blastoids are strikingly similar to human embryos

blastoids nature paper figure 2

A new word has been added to the lexicon of human stem cell research – blastoids, aka “blastocyst-like structures.” Unlike the familiar three-layered embryo that emerges during the third week of prenatal development, the earlier blastocyst resembles a fluid-filled soccer ball, with a smear of cells on the interior face destined to develop into the …

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