The discovery marks the ground-breaking development of a fully functional synthetic embryo obtained from stem cells, which are "the body’s raw material" that can convert into any tissue.
Since the team’s embryo model can grow neural tubes, i.e. the basis for the early brain and spine, it is believed to soon shed more light on the embryonic development and diseases in mammals, the US National Institutes of Health wrote.
The results of the research have already been published in one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals, Nature.
Though the study for the time being focuses on mouse cells, it should only take several months to emulate the mechanism in humans, according to the Polish weekly, Polityka.
'Worthy of Nobel Prize'
A biology professor and columnist for the weekly, Jacek Kubiak, hailed the discovery as "worthy of a Nobel Prize."
In 2020, Poland's Żernicka-Goetz was listed among "The world’s top 50 thinkers for the Covid-19 age" by The Prospect Magazine, for being "able to grow human embryos in vitro [from stem cells] right up to the current 14-day legal limit."
The Polish scientist received her PhD from the University of Warsaw, after which she moved on to pursue a career at the University of Oxford in the UK. She’s now affiliated with the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology.
(pjm/pm)
Source: NIH, Medical News Today, Polityka, Prospect