Synthetic Human Embryos

Researchers Create Synthetic Human Embryos Without Sperm Or Eggs

Scientists have created synthetic human embryos from stem cells without using eggs or sperm in a development that raises challenging moral and legal questions.

Synthetic embryos, also known as embryo models, are not equal to actual human embryos. Instead, they look similar to the early stages of human development and show no signs of the beginnings of a brain or a beating heart. However, it contains cells that typically end up forming the placenta, yolk sac, and the embryo. The development of synthetic human embryos was revealed at the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Boston on Wednesday by professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz from the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology.