The first mouse synthetic embryo
Lorenzo Roselli
After almost a decade of research, Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz and her team published an article in August 2022 declaring that they had grown the first synthetic embryo from a stem cell, a feat previously believed to be impossible. The synthetic embryo produced was that of a mouse, and the level to which the embryo had developed was impressive; the structure had grown a beating heart, brain, intestinal tract (Amadei et al., 2022), as well as the foundations for all the other organs (Collins, Garget 2022). Yet, when placed into the womb of an actual mouse, none of the embryos being tested developed into living organisms.
Scientific aspects
To appreciate the magnitude of this discovery, we must first understand how the team was able to create this synthetic embryo. The researchers cultured and grew three separate stem cells (as in three separate types of cells, e.g. skin, hair, bone) – which are present in an actual mouse embryo and later on develop into three critical structures that allow the embryo to grow and develop (Tarazi et al. 2022) – before placing them into a specially-designed artificial womb consisting of a rotating centrifuge. The machine supplied the glass flasks in the centrifuge with the nutrients required for the embryo to grow; it also simulated the blood flow of the placenta and the atmospheric pressure found in a mouse’s womb. Over the course of the experiment, the scientists observed how the three cell types self-organized into a structure very closely resembling that of a live mouse embryo. There was no external stimulation. Ever since discussion about them first arose in 1923, artificial wombs had always been crude amalgamations of silicon structures, plastic pipes, and polyester bags. A fundamental problem these grim structures posed – aside from their ghastly appearance – was the inability to analyse closely the sample researchers had placed in the womb. The initial objective of Prof. Zernicka-Goetz's research was to uncover why certain pregnancies fail. She explained in an interview how the chemical and mechanical interactions between the three different stem cells present in the early stages of an embryo are the ‘ foundation for everything else that follows in pregnancy. [and how] If it goes wrong, the pregnancy will fail .’ (Collins, Garget 2022). By developing an artificial womb that encapsulated the embryos in glass flasks, the researchers were easily able to study how the embryos were developing in great detail using microscopes as well as stains and dyes. This innovative invention, built exclusively for this research, has also been used by Prof. Zernicka-Goetz and her team to grow (albeit very primitive) synthetic human embryos. As research in this field progresses, it is more than feasible to believe that this machine may be responsible in the not-so-distant future for the growth of artificial human life. This discovery also has practical applications, for example, in the field of organ manufacturing. This is an area that has been in the media’s crosshair over the last few years, but, with technologies such as 3D bioprinting still in their infancy, meaning that complex organs still cannot be produced, the road to growing artificial organs in labs is still a long and arduous one. However, it is believed that this discovery has brought us substantially closer to this reality. With some more investigation and
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