The Press Stories
Science. A recent scientific breakthrough with artificial mouse embryos has finally made it possible to cure certain diseases in humans. But this raises some ethical questions.
A historical discovery
From time to time, we deal with certain scientific matters when the facts are so important as to be raised. Months ago, we told you The world’s largest bacteria Never analyzed, the “Theomargarita Magnifica“, a string-like uninucleate bacterium discovered in Guadeloupe.
Today, for the first time, researchers have developed Mouse embryos without using eggs or sperm He watched them grow outside the womb. A real breakthrough in our understanding of how embryos develop.
After eight days of cultivation
Therefore, these embryos were created only from stem cells taken from the skin. This discovery was appreciated Weizmann Institute of ScienceIn Israel, notably Jacob Hanna, an embryonic stem cell biologist
This achievement was published in the journal Go, In the center of a scientific paper explaining how the researchers achieved their achievement. For example we observe Embryos develop only after eight days of incubation Stem cells. To guarantee this, A specialized insurance system (in an attempt to mimic the function of the uterus) was used, in which each embryo was placed in a bottle with a special liquid, providing them with all the nutrients, hormones and sugars they needed.
Towards Advances in Treatment and Transplantation
This discovery, in the future, may change a lot Treatment is effective for medication. Researchers say the technique could eventually be used one day Create artificial structures To generate cells for therapeutic purposes, but also to solve infertility problems, genetic diseases and ageing-related problems, resemble human embryos.
There is also a desire to succeed in the future Cultivating organs dedicated to transplantation, via an artificial uterus, acts as an incubator.
“Our next challenge is to find out how stem cells are supposed to do, how they self-assemble into organs and find their way to their assigned places in the embryo,” summarizes the researcher.
However, all this is not without raising some controversy. Using human embryo clones for research raises ethical issues, particularly within the scientific community. So not everything is recorded for the future, it will take time for the whole society to accept this technique.
