Artificial 'embryos' created in the lab

Scientists in Britain have for the first time created a structure that resembles a mouse embryo using a 3D scaffold and two types of stem cells - research which deepens understanding of the earliest stages of mammalian development.

Publishing their results in the journal Science on Thursday, the team based at Cambridge University said that while the artificial embryo closely resembled the real thing, it would be unlikely to develop further into a healthy mouse foetus.

For research purposes, however, the scientists were able to show how the artificial embryo followed the same pattern of development as a normal embryo - with the stem cells organising themselves in the same way.

Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a professor at Cambridge's department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience who led the work, said the success with mouse cells should pave the way for similar work with human cells, helping scientists overcome a major barrier to human embryo research - a shortage of embryos.

Currently, human embryos for research are developed from surplus eggs donated through fertility clinics, but Zernicka-Goetz said it should in future be possible to make artificial human embryos for study. "This will allow us to study key events of this critical stage of human development without actually having to work on embryos," she said. "(And) knowing how development normally occurs will allow us to understand why it so often goes wrong."