Scientists were able to grow a mammal’s embryo out of the womb for the first time. In a study published on Wednesday in Nature, a team of researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel claims to have successfully cultivated more than 1,000 mouse embryos for six days using a process that involves a mechanical device. The first part of the experiment saw the team remove the mice from their mothers’ wombs after five days. In an interview with The New York TimesDr. Jacob Hanna, one of the researchers on the project, said his team has since managed to take an embryo out of a mouse shortly after fertilization and grow it for 11 days. Furthermore, embryos created in the laboratory are consistently identical to their “real” counterparts.
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The team spent seven years building the machine that enabled their research. It is a two-part system that consists of an incubator and a ventilation system. Each of the embryos floats in a flask that contains a special fluid laden with nutrients. A wheel gently rotates the mice so that they do not stick to the wall of your temporary home. This prevents the embryos from deforming and subsequently dying. Meanwhile, the connected fan supplies oxygen to the mice while maintaining the flow and pressure of the environment.
It takes about 20 days for a mouse to gestate to the point that it can survive outside the womb. So far, the mechanical uterus that Dr. Hanna and his team created can support the mice for 11 days of growth. It is at this point, in what would be more than half of a normal pregnancy, that the mice die. Embryos become too large to survive on just the nutrients they absorb through diffusion. They need a blood supply and this is the next technical challenge that the team plans to solve. A potential solution on the table includes an artificial blood supply that can connect to the rat’s placentas, said Dr. Hanna THE New York Times.
Before running into the mountains, know that Dr. Hanna’s team did not create the device to disrupt nature’s natural order. Instead, they are using their process to study how factors such as genetic mutations and environmental conditions can affect the growth of a fetus inside the womb. Until this discovery, scientists turned to species such as worms and frogs – that is, non-mammals – to study the development of tissues and organs. A similar device may one day allow scientists to develop a human baby in the same way, but that is something that is years and decades away, as long as it is possible.