Inside the ‘black box’ of human development
by Steve Connor from on (#1G5W0)
Researchers will soon have the means to study embryos beyond the 14-day legal limit. Does the potential for advances in medicine outweight ethical concerns?It is not birth, marriage or death, but gastrulation that is truly the most important time in your life."
When the eminent embryologist Lewis Wolpert wrote these words 30 years ago in From Egg to Embryo: Determinative Events in Early Development, human gastrulation - the most momentous of all embryonic transformations - was something of an unknown quantity. Indeed, it is still referred to as the "black box" of human development, occurring about 16 or 17 days after fertilisation and more than a week after the free-floating embryo has anchored itself to the lining of the womb.
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