ICREA research professor senior and researcher in Bioengineering Systems-MELIS at Pompeu Fabra University
A Chinese research team has reported the birth of a crab-eating macaque that is a chimera: an animal generated from the mixing of embryonic cells from two different individuals; in this case, from the same species, according to the journal Cell. Until now, this type of chimera had only been developed with rodents. This is the first time it has been achieved in non-human primates.
The Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday that Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz's team had announced the generation of synthetic human embryos from stem cells at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Boston. The author later denied on Twitter that they were synthetic human embryos and spoke only of models, warning that it was pending publication in a scientific journal. The day after the publication in The Guardian, and as reported in El País, Jacob Hanna and his team published a preprint - a publication that has not been peer-reviewed - in bioRxiv on models of human embryos generated from stem cells without genetic editing. A few hours later, Zernicka-Goetz's team posted their preprint on bioRxiv.
A scientific team has generated synthetic human embryos using stem cells, reports the British newspaper The Guardian. The authors, who announced the breakthrough at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Boston (USA), say the model embryos, similar to those found in the early stages of human development, could be crucial for research into genetic disorders and the causes of miscarriages, according to the newspaper. However, the work also raises ethical and legal issues.
Chinese researchers have succeeded in developing macaque embryo-like structures from embryonic stem cells. They have also managed to implant them in the uterus of female macaque monkeys and develop a hormonal response similar to that of a gestation, although they have only survived for about a week. According to the authors, whose research is published in Cell Stem Cell, these models could be used to improve our understanding of embryonic development and to investigate the causes of some early miscarriages.
Research published in Nature shows the creation of synthetic mouse embryos derived from stem cells. The embryo model copies the stages of natural rodent embryo development that take place up to day 8.5 after fertilisation and includes regions of the brain, a neural tube and a structure similar to a beating heart.