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[ad_1] Bangkok  — Scientists have developed human embryo-like structures without using sperm, an egg or fertilization, offering hope for research on miscarriage and birth defects but also raising fresh ethical concerns. Earlier this year, several labs around the world released pre-print studies that had not been peer-reviewed, describing their development of early human embryo-like structures. Now one group's research has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, describing how they coaxed human embryonic stem cells to self-organize into a model resembling an early embryo. The research was welcomed by some scientists as an "impressive" advance that could help unlock secrets about the precarious early stages of pregnancies, when failure is most common. Dr Jacob Hanna, a specialist in molecular genetics at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, holds a vial containing five-day-old synthetic mouse embryos grown in an electronically ...

[ad_1] This advance could reduce the need for donated human embryos in research. (Image: Shutterstock) Scientists so far have only been able to study the period of early human development using donated human embryos. A model of the human embryo derived from stem cells has been created in the lab, a breakthrough that scientists say could help understand early human development and why and how some pregnancies fail. Derived from pluripotent stem cells, or stem cells able to develop into various different cell types, this embryo model is an organised three-dimensional structure replicating some of the early human embryonal developmental processes, the research from Cambridge University, UK, said. Such models, allowing experimental modelling of embryonic development during the second week of pregnancy, could also help researchers understand the developmental origins of organs and specialised cells such as sperm and eggs, the study published in the journal Nature said. The second week ...