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Science

Scientists Create Synthetic Mouse Embryos (washingtonpost.com) 63

Posted by BeauHD from the proof-of-concept dept.
Stem cell researchers in Israel have created synthetic mouse embryos without using a sperm or egg, then grown them in an artificial womb for eight days, a development that opens a window into a fascinating, potentially fraught realm of science that could one day be used to create replacement organs for humans. The Washington Post reports: The objective, scientists involved with the research said, is not to create mice or babies outside the womb, but to jump-start the understanding of how organs develop in embryos and to use that knowledge to develop new ways to heal people. From a clump of embryonic stem cells, scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science created synthetic embryos that closely resembled real mouse embryos, with rudimentary beating hearts, blood circulation, folded brain tissue and intestinal tracts. The mouse embryos grew in an artificial womb and stopped developing after eight days, about a third of a mouse pregnancy.

The research, published Monday in the journal Cell, is far from growing a mouse, much less a human, outside the womb. It was a proof of concept that a complete synthetic embryo could be assembled from embryonic stem cells, and while the researchers were successful, it was a highly error-prone process, with only a small fraction of embryos going on to develop the beginnings of a beating heart and other organs. Although the synthetic mouse embryos bore a close resemblance to natural mouse embryos, they were not exactly the same and did not implant or result in pregnancies in real mice, according to Jacob Hanna, the stem cell scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science who led the work.

The research, like other recent studies, puts the possibility of a complete human synthetic embryo on the horizon, several researchers said, making it necessary to continue a societal discussion about how these entities should be handled. Last year, the International Society for Stem Cell Research relaxed a historical "14-day rule" that said researchers could grow natural embryos for only 14 days in the laboratory, allowing researchers to seek approval for longer studies. Human embryo models are banned from being implanted into a uterus.
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Scientists Create Synthetic Mouse Embryos More

Scientists Create Synthetic Mouse Embryos

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  • Synthetic Mouse Overlords (Score:3)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2022 @06:35AM (#62755150)

    Walt Disney is awaiting reanimation.

    • I for one welcome my new overlords as I plug into The Matrix. Just please do not tell the rats about this stuff, okay?Is that too much to ask? As if anyone needed a Special Agent Anderson Rat Patrol on their ass.

    • ... just to extend his copyright.

  • Synthesis (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm not sure "synthetic" is a very accurate description of that, they've grown one from existing genetic material. Not that it isn't impressive but it's not what "synthetic" means to me.

  • Better solve this now (Score:4, Interesting)

    by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2022 @07:21AM (#62755200)

    The ethical implications of this work are astounding.

    If they can do mice, they can do humans. If they can go 15 days, they can go full term.

    What legal structures are in place to make _certain_ that children created this way have the same right to life and freedom as those "created naturally"?

    Who is legally responsible for them, to raise, feed, clothe, educate, etc?

    Would they be considered artificial people and therefore subject to slavery, owned by the corporate labs that created them?

    A lot of scary sci-fi potential with this work.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cstacy ( 534252 )

      If they can go 15 days, they can go full term.

      Only in the sense of: "If they have flown a paper airplane across the classroom, they can go to the Moon."

      There's a little more to it than you appear to understand.

      • I read the article, thanks. There's a little more to the article than the summary you skimmed.

        It specifically refers to human embryos in addition to mice.

        The only thing needed is a womb to carry it to term. Legally speaking that woman is not the mother depending on jurisdiction.

    • As others have said, the US is supposed to be a thoughtful enlightened country but we now have states where a 12 year old girl is forced to carry the child of her rapist. Sorry dude, but concerns about the implications to freedom and dignity of a clump of mouse cells is way, way, WAY down the list of concerns. We got much more serious fascist dystopian concerns going on right now to deal with

      • True. With over 300m people in this country we can only think about one thing at a time. Yup. Righty-o!

        And if you had understood the article and the science we are talking about humans, not just mice. But I think you knew that and made a point in bad faith in a weak attempt to throw shade.

        • My point is that we shouldn’t be spending much effort worrying about a possible, maybe, might happen at some time in the future dystopia when, as we speak, the state-next-door is passing laws that require some 12 year old girls to act as unwilling baby factories.

          Downmod me, no problem, but I’m not exaggerating in the slightest. Those laws are on the books and currently in force. Not a bad faith comment in the slightest.

    • Abortion is illegal, so defective embryos can't be destroyed. Thanks, Republicans. That won't stop them from making a new enslavable category "artificial people." They will claim that only people created "naturally" and "organic" without any the use of chemicals and molecules are real people with souls. How can a soul get placed into an embryo without "parents." Jesus will only put a soul inside people who are created using "organic" ingredients with a bona fide mother and father. God anticipated this stuff

    • What legal structures are in place to make _certain_ that children created this way have the same right to life and freedom as those "created naturally"?
      ...
      Would they be considered artificial people and therefore subject to slavery, owned by the corporate labs that created them?

      The law makes no distinction on how people are made. Therefore, there is no reason they wouldn't be afforded the same rights. This is totally a non-issue.

      Who is legally responsible for them, to raise, feed, clothe, educate, etc?

      If nobody claims responsibility then they are a ward of the state, just like any other child.

      • The law has already made some distinctions on how people are made.

        For example, the law has no problem with human cells and even micro-brains growing for a few weeks before being destroyed. The law has determined those are not people. At some point (tbd) they do become people. Or maybe not. If those micro brains can be destroyed Willy Nilesh but a full term brain can not then at some point it transitions from clump of interesting scientific bio matter into a person.

        And this leads us back into the abortio

        • The law has already made some distinctions on how people are made.
          For example, the law has no problem with human cells and even micro-brains growing for a few weeks before being destroyed. The law has determined those are not people. At some point (tbd) they do become people.

          You specifically asked about children which are definitively people. The law makes no distinction on how people are made. Therefore, there is no reason they wouldn't be afforded the same rights. This is totally a non-issue.

          Or here's another one: if we clone you without your brain, is it ok to carve up your adult clone body for parts?

          Without a functional brain, a human body is not a person.

          They already do this for brain-dead patients and "carve [them] up" for parts while the body is still functioning. Since they were functional humans, the decision to declare them dead is given to legal representative (usually famil

    • Re: Better solve this now (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Grokew ( 8384065 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2022 @12:00PM (#62756050)
      The should have the same rights as a naturally conceived child. Same as children product of in vitro fertilization, or subrogation. Why would anything be different? The scary part would be unscrupulous scientists and corporations growing a lot of "synthetics" for use in medical experiments, but they already did that to naturally conceived children during WW2 (and they might still be doing it in other countries).

      please forgive the Godwin's law references

    • Lois McMaster Bujold's uterine replicators may be closer than 800 years off.

      And finally a way for a man to have a family the Court can't take away on a whim. Men getting the same rights in parenting will have some social ramifications.

  • Was wondering what those Canadians were up to now.
  • toward the island. Soon we'll be cloning celebrities for organ harvesting.

  • why not just outlaw natural childbirth, and grow new humans in a lab?

  • "More Human than Human is our motto."

  • ...and all the adorable and frightful stuff from the Monstruous Manual

    • Well, how about a synthetic virus that includes a Furin cleavage site and causes the worst pandemic in a century?

      • Sneaky, because the great Spanish flu epidemic that killed between 17 and a 100 million is exactly a 102 years old. Just a few metaphorical clocks ticks over a century. To put it into perspective, the corona virus was fairly big, but by no means record breaking.
  • When the saucers come, deny that you are human.

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