Researchers use stem cells to create mouse embryos

Scientists have created “synthetic” mouse embryos from stem cells without a dad’s sperm or a mom’s egg or womb.

The lab-created embryos mirror a natural mouse embryo up to 8 ½ days after fertilization, containing the same structures, including one like a beating heart.

In the near term, researchers hope to use these so-called embryoids to better understand early stages of development and study mechanisms behind disease without the need for as many lab animals. The feat also could lay the foundation for creating synthetic human embryos for research in the future.

“We are undoubtedly facing a new technological revolution, still very inefficient … but with enormous potential,” said Lluís Montoliu, a research professor at the National Biotechnology Centre in Spain who is not part of the research.“it is reminiscent of such spectacular scientific advances as the birth of Dolly the sheep” and others.

A study published Thursday in the journal Nature, by Magdalena Zernicka-goetz at the California Institute of Technology and her colleagues, was the latest to describe the synthetic mouse embryos.

Zernicka-goetz, an expert in stem cell biology, said one reason to study the early stages of development is to get more insight into why the majority of human pregnancies are lost at an early stage and embryos created for in vitro fertilization fail to implant and develop in up to 70% of cases. Studying natural development is difficult for many reasons, she said, including the fact that very few human embryos are donated for research and scientists face ethical constraints.