Author: Tristan Greene / Source: The Next Web
All mammals experience a moment in the early stages of life where they’re nothing more than a handful of cells bouncing around a uterus. Eventually this cell-cluster attaches itself to the womb’s wall and that, folks, is how babies are made – well, it used to be.
A team of researchers from The University of Cambridge published research earlier this week indicating they’d achieved a breakthrough in stem cell research that resulted in the generation of a key life event that’d never been witnessed in an artificial embryo before.
Basically, the scientists put three different types of mouse stem cells, into a dish and coaxed them into simulating a process called gastrulation – one of the very first events that happens during a creature’s embryonic stage indicating it’s going to be alive. It’s probably not accurate to say they created life, but what they’ve done is a snapshot of something that looks a lot like what happens when life is created.
In a way, the team made the building blocks for something that could potentially become a mouse, out of three stem cells. It’s a bit difficult to wrap your head around without thinking about words like “life” or “alive,” especially since it looks like that’s where this work is headed.
Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, who led the research team, says:
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