For the first time, scientists have managed to grow a mammal’s embryo outside the womb. In a study released Wednesday in Naturea team of researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel says they have successfully grown more than 1,000 mouse embryos over six days using a process involving a mechanical device. In the first part of the experiment, the team removed the mice from their mother’s womb after five days. In an interview with The New York TimesDr. Jacob Hanna, one of the project’s researchers, said his team has since managed to take an embryo from a female mouse right after fertilization and grow it for 11 days. In addition, the lab-grown embryos are consistently identical to their ‘real’ counterparts.
A. Aguilera-Castrejon et al
The team spent seven years creating the machine that made their research possible. It is a two-piece system consisting of an incubator and ventilation system. Each of the embryos floats in a bottle that is filled with a special nutrient fluid. A wheel spins the mice gently so they don’t cling to the wall of their temporary home. This prevents the embryos from deforming and then dying. Meanwhile, the attached ventilator supplies the mice with oxygen while maintaining the flow and pressure of their environment.
It takes about 20 days for a mouse to be pregnant to the point where it can survive outside the womb. So far, the mechanical uterus that Dr. Hanna and his team have made the mice grow for 11 days. It is at that point, in what would be more than halfway through a normal pregnancy, that the mice die. The embryos grow too large to survive on only the nutrients they absorb through diffusion. They need a blood supply, and that’s the next technical challenge the team wants to solve. One potential solution on the table is an artificial blood supply that can connect to the placentas of mice, Dr. Hanna The NEW Times
Before you run for the hills, you should know that Dr. Hanna’s did not create the device to disrupt the natural order of nature. Instead, they use their process to study how factors such as genetic mutations and environmental factors can affect the growth of a fetus in the womb. Until this breakthrough, scientists had turned to species like worms and frogs – that is, non-mammals – to study the development of tissues and organs. With a similar device, scientists could one day grow a human baby in the same way, but that’s something that’s years and decades away, provided it’s even possible.