Reacción a "Reactions to the news on the creation of synthetic human embryos from stem cells"

The work reported in The Guardian builds on a steadily growing foundation of research that demonstrates that stem cells can, under very specialised laboratory conditions, be persuaded to form a structure that resembles the embryonic stage called the blastocyst. In normal development, the blastocyst is an important structure as it is around this time that the embryo begins the process of implanting into the uterus and establishing pregnancy. We know remarkably little about this step in human development, but it is a time where many pregnancies are lost, especially in an IVF setting. So, models that can enable us to study this period are urgently needed to help to understand infertility and early pregnancy loss. 

Currently, we can say that these ‘synthetic embryos’ share a number of features with blastocysts, but it is important to recognise that the way that synthetic embryos are formed is different to what happens when a normal embryo forms a blastocyst.  There is much work to be done to determine the similarities and differences between synthetic embryos and embryos that form from the union of an egg and a sperm.  This work from Zernicka-Goetz hasn’t yet been fully appraised by the scientific community, but it does offer exciting prospects to answer these questions and may provide an important tool to study early development while reducing the reliance on human embryos for such research. Given the nature of this work, UK lawyers, ethicists and scientists are presently working to establish a set of voluntary guidelines ensure that research on synthetic embryos is done responsibly.