Synthetic embryos complete gastrulation to neurulation and organogenesis

nature.com

54 points·jdmark··11 comments

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Obligatory IN MICE

The length of a mouse pregnancy is ~20 days. I wonder how does such an embryo compare to a natural one?

Wow. So 8.5 days is almost the half-point of the pregnancy.

what s stopping them from continuing after day 8.5

Mercy.

This work was done in mice. These are mouse embryos.

Not saying they’re the same but humans essentially look like fish, chickens, pigs (gils, tails, etc) for the first few weeks.

It is up to one's empathy, but mercy isn't something strictly directed towards humans. For some people it is universal, others have no mercy even for fellow humans.

It’s often money. I’d run dozens of experiments, but some reason Forbes top 100 don’t want in the queue in front of the lab.

But also, there might be lack of results beyond that time point.

Most likely didn't work after 8.5 days

Ethics. I mean, yes it's "only" mice, but still - there is no point in letting them develop into animals that can actually feel harm for no purpose, at least not until the feti are similar in development quality to naturally grown feti.

I think a more accurate title for these sorts of things is "Synthetic embryos look like they complete gastrulation to neurulation and organogenesis". Still impressive but with these sorts of things it's the unknown unknowns that are the problem.

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