Tag Archives: stem cells

Scientific breakthrough in a Synthetic human embryo that needs no egg or sperm

Synthetic-Embryos

Important Takeaways:

  • Scientists have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells, in a groundbreaking advance that sidesteps the need for eggs or sperm.
  • Scientists say these model embryos, which resemble those in the earliest stages of human development, could provide a crucial window on the impact of genetic disorders and the biological causes of recurrent miscarriage.
  • However, the work also raises serious ethical and legal issues as the lab-grown entities fall outside current legislation in the UK and most other countries.
  • The structures do not have a beating heart or the beginnings of a brain, but include cells that would typically go on to form the placenta, yolk sac and the embryo itself.
  • Robin Lovell-Badge, the head of stem cell biology and developmental genetics at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said: “The idea is that if you really model normal human embryonic development using stem cells, you can gain an awful lot of information about how we begin development, what can go wrong, without having to use early embryos for research.”
  • The full details of the latest work, from the Cambridge-Caltech lab, are yet to be published in a journal paper. But, speaking at the conference, Żernicka-Goetz described cultivating the embryos to a stage just beyond the equivalent of 14 days of development for a natural embryo.
  • The model structures, each grown from a single embryonic stem cell, reached the beginning of a developmental milestone known as gastrulation, when the embryo transforms from being a continuous sheet of cells to forming distinct cell lines and setting up the basic axes of the body. At this stage, the embryo does not yet have a beating heart, gut or beginnings of a brain, but the model showed the presence of primordial cells that are the precursor cells of egg and sperm.

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Scientists have created the human embryo

Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Important Takeaways:

  • Synthetic human embryos created in groundbreaking advance
  • Scientists have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells, in a groundbreaking advance that sidesteps the need for eggs or sperm.
  • Scientists say these model embryos, which resemble those in the earliest stages of human development, could provide a crucial window on the impact of genetic disorders and the biological causes of recurrent miscarriage.
  • The structures do not have a beating heart or the beginnings of a brain, but include cells that would typically go on to form the placenta, yolk sac and the embryo itself.
  • There is no near-term prospect of the synthetic embryos being used clinically. It would be illegal to implant them into a patient’s womb, and it is not yet clear whether these structures have the potential to continue maturing beyond the earliest stages of development.
  • The motivation for the work is for scientists to understand the “black box” period of development that is so called because scientists are only allowed to cultivate embryos in the lab up to a legal limit of 14 days. They then pick up the course of development much further along by looking at pregnancy scans and embryos donated for research.

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Scientists create gene-edited animals as ‘surrogate sires’ to boost food production

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists have created gene-edited pigs, goats and cattle to produce sperm with traits such as disease resistance and higher meat quality in what they say is a step towards genetically enhancing livestock to improve food production.

The animals, created for the first time by researchers in the United States and Britain using a gene-editing tool called CRISPR-Cas9, could be used as “surrogate sires,” essentially sterile blank slates that could then be transplanted with stem cells that produce the desired sperm, the scientists said.

The process could help farmers rear healthier, more productive animals using fewer resources such as feed, medicines and water, they said. It could also give breeders in remote regions of the world better access to genetic material of elite animals from elsewhere, allowing for “precision breeding”.

“With this technology, we can get better dissemination of desirable traits and improve the efficiency of food production,” said Jon Oatley, a reproductive biologist at Washington State University in the United States, who co-led the work.

He said this could have a major impact on addressing food insecurity around the world. “If we can tackle this genetically, then that means less water, less feed and fewer antibiotics we have to put into the animals.”

Yet gene-editing has long been a contentious subject, and the latest advance could face resistance from critics opposed to the genetic modification of animals, which they regard as dangerous tampering with nature.

The researchers stressed that the gene-editing process they used was designed only to bring about changes within an animal species that could occur naturally.

This research was a “proof of concept,” they said, and showed that the technique could work. Current regulations, however, mean that gene-edited surrogate sires could not be used in the food chain anywhere in the world, even though their offspring would not be gene-edited, the researchers added.

Oatley’s team used CRISPR-Cas9 to knock out a gene specific to male fertility in the animal embryos that would be raised to become the surrogate sires. The male animals were then born sterile, but began producing sperm after researchers transplanted stem cells from donor animals into their testes.

“This shows the world that this technology is real. It can be used,” said Bruce Whitelaw, an expert at the Roslin Institute at Britain’s Edinburgh University who worked on the team. “We now have to … work out how best to use it productively to help feed our growing population.”

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Pravin Char)

German scientists create see-through human organs

An employee works with stem cells at Dr. Ali Ertuerk's laboratory in Munich, Germany April 23, 2019. Mr. Ertuerk and his team developed DISCO transparency technology which is used by scientists from diverse biomedical research fields to generate high resolution views of intact rodent organs and bodies, a milestone on the way to generate 3D-bioprinted human organs. Picture taken April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

By Ayhan Uyanik

MUNICH (Reuters) – Researchers in Germany have created transparent human organs using a new technology that could pave the way to print three-dimensional body parts such as kidneys for transplants.

A transparent mouse is pictured at the laboratory of Dr. Ali Ertuerk, Group Leader at the Institute for Stroke and Dementia Research (ISD) at the Ludwig Maximillian's University, in Munich, Germany April 23, 2019. Mr. Ertuerk and his team developed DISCO transparency technology which is used by scientists from diverse biomedical research fields to generate high resolution views of intact rodent organs and bodies, a milestone on the way to generate 3D-bioprinted human organs. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

A transparent mouse is pictured at the laboratory of Dr. Ali Ertuerk, Group Leader at the Institute for Stroke and Dementia Research (ISD) at the Ludwig Maximillian’s University, in Munich, Germany April 23, 2019. Mr. Ertuerk and his team developed DISCO transparency technology which is used by scientists from diverse biomedical research fields to generate high resolution views of intact rodent organs and bodies, a milestone on the way to generate 3D-bioprinted human organs. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

Scientists led by Ali Erturk at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich have developed a technique that uses a solvent to make organs such as the brain and kidneys transparent.

The organ is then scanned by lasers in a microscope that allows researchers to capture the entire structure, including the blood vessels and every single cell in its specific location.

Using this blueprint, researchers print out the scaffold of the organ. They then load the 3D printer with stem cells which act as “ink” and are injected into the correct position making the organ functional.

While 3D printing is already used widely to produce spare parts for industry, Erturk said the development marks a step forward for 3D printing in the medical field.

Until now 3D-printed organs lacked detailed cellular structures because they were based on images from computer tomography or MRI machines, he said.

“We can see where every single cell is located in transparent human organs. And then we can actually replicate exactly the same, using 3D bioprinting technology to make a real functional organ,” he said.

A transparent human brain is shown by Dr. Ali Ertuerk at his laboratory in Munich, Germany April 23, 2019. Mr. Ertuerk and his team developed DISCO transparency technology which is used by scientists from diverse biomedical research fields to generate high resolution views of intact rodent organs and bodies, a milestone on the way to generate 3D-bioprinted human organs. Picture taken April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

A transparent human brain is shown by Dr. Ali Ertuerk at his laboratory in Munich, Germany April 23, 2019. Mr. Ertuerk and his team developed DISCO transparency technology which is used by scientists from diverse biomedical research fields to generate high resolution views of intact rodent organs and bodies, a milestone on the way to generate 3D-bioprinted human organs. Picture taken April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

“Therefore, I believe we are much closer to a real human organ for the first time now.”

Erturk’s team plan to start by creating a bioprinted pancreas over the next 2-3 years and also hope to develop a kidney within 5-6 years.

The researchers will first test to see whether animals can survive with the bioprinted organs and could start clinical trials within 5-10 years, he said.

(Reporting by Ayhan Uyanik; Writing by Caroline Copley; Editing by Susan Fenton)