Is your thymus getting old and run-down, replace it with a new one…
With plans to create realistic synthetic embryos, grown in jars, Renewal Bio is on a journey to the horizon of science and ethics.
In a search for novel forms of longevity medicine, a biotech company based in Israel says it intends to create embryo-stage versions of people in order to harvest tissues for use in transplant treatments.
The company, Renewal Bio, is pursuing recent advances in stem-cell technology and artificial wombs demonstrated by Jacob Hanna, a biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. Earlier this week, Hanna showed that starting with mouse stem cells, his lab could form highly realistic-looking mouse embryos and keep them growing in a mechanical womb for several days until they developed beating hearts, flowing blood, and cranial folds.
It’s the first time such an advanced embryo has been mimicked without sperm, eggs, or even a uterus. Hanna’s report was published in the journal Cell on Monday.
So this is not far off from some of the cloning studies from years ago.
I wonder if 3D copy devices can keep up with this. I believe one of the problems of the cloning research was that the clones aged at the rate of the animal that they were cloning. I think it was a sheep, Dollie? The cloned babies started to get arthritis early in their lives due to their cells were aging at the same rate as Dollie was - She was like 6 years old and the babies were aging like 6 year olds. Its been awhile since I read about that.
Even though these are “artificial embryos,” the whole process sets off my moral alarms for what the technology could eventually be used for: not only harvesting compatible cells, but for harvesting organs from more developed fetuses. Ethical standards are needed, and there are currently no guard rails.
