This startup plans to create a human embryo

Now people

Renewal’s bio covers the actual technical plan, and the company’s website is just a calling card. “It’s very low on the details of the reason. We don’t want to overpromise, we don’t want to scare people,” said Omri Amirav-Drori, an NFX partner who is acting as CEO of the new company.

Some scientists say that it will be difficult to develop human embryo models to a high level and that it would be better to avoid the controversy by closely resembling real embryos.

“It’s not important at all, so why do it?” says stem-cell scientist Nicolas Revron of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna. Scientists argue that they need to create only the “minimum embryonic structure necessary” to produce the cells of interest.

Amirav-Drori, for his part, says that he has not seen a technology with such potential since the first appearance of CRISPR gene-editing technology. “The ability to create an artificial embryo from cells — no egg, no sperm, no uterus — is amazing,” he said. “We think it can be a large and flexible platform technology that can be applied to both fertility and longevity.”

Mechanical uterus

Hanna’s lab is combining advanced stem-cell science with new types of bioreactors to make breakthroughs.

A year ago, a stem-cell specialist demonstrated for the first time a “mechanical uterus” that allowed a natural mouse embryo to grow outside of a female mouse for several days. The system consists of rotating vials that keep the embryos bathed in balanced blood serum and oxygen.

A. AGUILERA-CASTREJON ET AL., Nature 2021

In a new study published this week, Hanna used the same mechanical womb, but this time she was able to grow embryos that appeared to have been created from stem cells.

Intriguingly, when stem cells are grown together in specially shaped containers, they spontaneously fuse together and attempt to assemble an embryo, creating structures called embryos, blastoids, or artificial embryo models. Many researchers say that despite their external appearance, these structures have a limited relationship with a real embryo and have zero potential for full development.