Scientists grow tiny mice in lab from scratch with hearts and brains

Scientists have managed to grow mouse embryos with hearts and brains out of nothing but a stem cell.

The lab-built babies were created without any sperm or eggs and managed to live for eight and a half days – that is approximately half the length of time a mouse is typically pregnant.

A yolk sack formed around the embryos and allowed them to gain nutrition and, in return, they formed digestive tracts, the beginnings of the central nervous system, hearts that beat, and brains with subsections.

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The findings were published on Thursday, August 25 in the journal Nature.

Developmental and stem-cell biologist and senior study author, Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, said: "This has been the dream of our community for years and [a] major focus of our work for a decade, and finally, we've done it".

Earlier this month, on August 1, a similar study was reported in the journal Cell led by embryonic stem cell biologist Jacob Hanna.

In their study the mice grew digestive tracts, beating hearts and tiny wrinkled brains before they died.

Discussing the findings, Zernicka-Goetz, said: "This period of human life is so mysterious, so to be able to see how it happens in a dish – to have access to these individual stem cells, to understand why so many pregnancies fail and how we might be able to prevent that from happening – is quite special.

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“We looked at the dialogue that has to happen between the different types of stem cell at that time – we've shown how it occurs and how it can go wrong."

In both studies, the lab-built embryos were similar to natural ones although some defects were found in the way tissues organised themselves.

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