Human brain grown in lab

Miniature "human brains" have been grown in a lab in a feat scientists hope will transform the understanding of neurological disorders. The pea-sized structures reached the same level of development as in a nine-week-old foetus, but are incapable of thought.

The study, published in the journal Nature, has already been used to gain insight into rare diseases. Neuroscientists have described the findings as astounding and fascinating.

The human brain is one of the most complicated structures in the universe. Scientists at Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have now reproduced some of the earliest stages of the organ's development in the laboratory.

They used either embryonic stem cells or adult skin cells to produce the part of an embryo that develops into the brain and spinal cord - the neuroectoderm. This was placed in tiny droplets of gel to give a scaffold for the tissue to grow and was placed into a spinning bioreactor, a nutrient bath that supplies nutrients and oxygen. Read more >>

Human Cloning One Step Closer

Scientists have used cloning technology to transform human skin cells into embryonic stem cells, an experiment that may revive the controversy over human cloning.

The researchers stopped well short of creating a human clone. But they showed, for the first time, that it is possible to create cloned embryonic stem cells that are genetically identical to the person from whom they are derived.

These stem cells could go on to differentiate into heart, nerve, muscle, bone and all the other tissue types that make up a human body.

Since the birth of Dolly the sheep in 1996, researchers have cloned about 20 species, including rabbits, goats, cows and cats. Yet they have been unable to create biologically identical copies of any monkey or primate, including humans, possibly because their reproductive biology is more complicated. Read more >>

Lab-Made Eggs Raise New Fertility Options

Japanese scientists have made viable mouse eggs in a laboratory dish, an advance that may offer a new route for treating infertility in people. The experiment completes a long-sought quest in reproductive biology: to make sperm and eggs in a lab dish. A year ago, the same core group of scientists at Kyoto University created healthy mouse sperm in the lab.

In the latest experiment, the dish-created eggs were fertilized with natural mouse sperm to create healthy, fertile mice. The research appears in the journal Science. Making mouse eggs "was a little harder to do," said Katsuhiko Hayashi, the lead author of the Science paper. Unlike sperm, he said, egg cells are "big and fragile, and they get mature only after a long, complex process."

It will be even tougher to repeat the trick in people. But if it can ever be done, it has the potential to transform reproductive medicine by enabling both infertile men and women to conceive their own genetic offspring. Read more >>