World's first 'synthetic embryo': why this research is more important than you think - The Conversation

In what’s reported as a world-first achievement, biologists have grown mouse embryo models in the lab without the need for fertilised eggs, embryos, or even a mouse – using only stem cells and a special incubator.

This achievement, published in the journal Cell by a team led by researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, is a very sophisticated model of what happens during early mouse embryo development – in the stage just after implantation.

In 2021, several teams managed to get human pluripotent stem cells (cells that can turn into any other type of cell) to self-aggregate in a Petri dish, mimicking the “blastocyst”.

Researchers using these human embryo models, often called blastoids, have even been able to start to explore implantation in a dish, but this process is much more challenging in humans than it is in mice.

Are they human embryonic stem cells (derived from a blastocyst), or are they induced pluripotent stem cells.

An important consideration is whether using cells for this particular type of research – trying to mimic an embryo in a dish – requires any specific consent.

In Australia, research involving human stem cell embryo models would require licensing, similar to that required for the use of natural human embryos under law that has been in place since 2002.

There is a distinction between banning the use of this technology and technologies like cloning in humans for reproductive use, and allowing research using embryo models to advance our understanding of human development and developmental disorders that we can’t answer by any other means