Expert issues warning about ‘synthetic’ embryos made without sperm or egg

Scientists at Cambridge University and the California Institute of Technology announced they have created so-called “synthetic” human embryos without the use of sperm or eggs. Instead, the embryos were created using embryonic stem cells. Dr. David Prentice, Ph.D., a stem cell expert with the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told CBN News that the research is a “real call for concern.”

According to the Daily Mail, Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a fellow at the University of Cambridge, explained, “We can create human embryo-like models by the reprogramming of [embryonic stem] cells.”

The Guardian reports that the “synthetic” embryos “resemble those in the earliest stages of human development” and are being studied to try to understand the “impact of genetic disorders and the biological causes of recurrent miscarriage.”

The embryos allegedly do not have beating hearts or the first stages of a brain, but do include cells that would form the placenta, yolk sac, and the continued development of the embryo.

Because they were created using stem cells, the embryos are not protected by the 14-day rule which prohibits the cultivating of embryos in research beyond two weeks — allowing researchers a way to skirt the rule. Researchers are also not legally allowed to implant synthetic embryos in a womb.

In September 2022, researchers led by Zernicka-Goetz, announced they had created mouse embryos using only stem cells and kept them alive long enough to develop beating hearts, blood flow, and cerebral folds of the brain. They were “95% similar to normal mouse embryos,” said Jacob Hanna, founder of the biotech firm Renewal Bio, which took part in the research.

The next step was to begin making human embryos in the same manner, which they have now achieved.

Though they have been deemed “synthetic,” the embryos are real. Dr. Prentice told Live Action News in 2022 that the organization has been tracking this research. He explained, “[T]hey like to use the term ‘synthetic,’ but it’s a dodge because they still want to play with embryos, so it’s just distracting you with the terminology. The technique may be artificial or synthetic, but what’s made — with beating hearts, nervous system, limbs, organs — is the real thing.”

The goal of Renewal Bio is to reverse “declining birth rates and fast aging populations.” Hanna told MIT Technology Review that he wants to create human embryos as old as 50 days — nearly two months. The goal would be to create embryonic-stage versions of people that would be used to harvest tissue to lengthen a person’s life and improve their health as well as overcome infertility. The idea would be to harvest the eggs and sperm from the “synthetic” embryo in order to allow an infertile adult to reproduce.

Dr. Prentice told CBN News, “My contention would be the technique to create them may be synthetic, but if you have something growing [that has] a beating heart and a nervous system and limbs and digits and other organs that look exactly like the organism you would take out of the womb, its an embryo.”

“It’s being disingenuous to make us think that these are not actual organisms,” he added.

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