Scientists reported a breakthrough in creating synthetic human embryos without the use of eggs or sperm but now face legal and ethical issues.
They claim to have created model embryos using stem cells, and that those embryos resemble early stages of human development, which can be used in the studies of human genetic disorders.
“We can create human embryo-like models by the reprogramming of [embryonic stem] cells,” said Professor Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz from the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, describing scientists’ work in a plenary address at the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Boston….