Israeli scientists have successfully grown several animal organs without fertilizing an egg, raising the possibility that “synthetic” animals can be grown from stem cells without using donor eggs or sperm.
The scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science were able to grow a mouse embryo in a petri dish from stem cells to form a brain, gut, nervous system, and beating heart. The embryo was formed using reprogrammed mouse cells and was grown in an artificial womb, according to Mirror.
“The embryo is the best organ-making machine and the best 3D bioprinter — we tried to emulate what it does,” said Professor Jacob Hanna, the head of the research team. “Our next challenge is to understand how stem cells know what to do, how they self-assemble into organs and find their way to their assigned spots inside an embryo.”
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The scientists have insisted the development of the artificial womb is not intended to grow humans but instead could be used to grow individual organs for transplants.
The mouse stem cells were cultured for years to be reprogrammed back to their “naive” state, their earliest stage, when they have the potential to specialize into different cell types and grow into any organ.
Scientific ethical rules place restrictions on the use of donor eggs and sperm in research, including in mice.
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Professor Alfonso Martinez Arias, a developmental biologist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona who was not involved in this study, described the research as a “game changer” and “an important landmark” in understanding how embryos build themselves.
“Importantly this opens the door to similar studies with human cells, though there are many regulatory hoops to get through first and, from the point of view of the experiments, human systems lag behind mouse systems,” Arias said.
