We Can Use Stem Cells to Make Embryos. How Far Should We Go?
upstart writes:
[...] These "synthetic embryos" can be made without the direct contribution of egg or sperm cells. Because they're not "real" embryos, some have argued that the same restrictions don't apply.
Embryos made from stem cells, rather than an egg and sperm, appear to generate a short-lived pregnancy-like response in monkeys.
Recent advances are allowing scientists to create embryo-like structures that look more and more like the real thing. Just this week, scientists in China described how they developed structures called blastoids for 17 days in the lab. They even managed to get some of them to implant in the uteruses of monkeys and trigger the very first signs of pregnancy.
The blastoids didn't survive for very long, probably because researchers haven't quite figured out how best to mimic what happens during the development of a conventional embryo. But most believe that it's just a matter of time. If we can eventually get stem cells to form a viable embryo, a functional fetus, or even a baby, should we treat blastoids in the same way we treat embryos?
Perhaps the bigger question rests on how embryo-like these stem-cell-derived structures are. For some scientists, it's a catch-22 situation. If the blastoids look too much like embryos, then many believe research with them should be restricted in the same way that we control work on human embryos.
But if they don't look enough like embryos, then there's no point in using them for research, says Chuva de Sousa Lopes. "At the moment, it's so difficult to understand how close they are, or how different they are," she says.
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