The notion of artificial life created in a lab – heralded today with the news that scientists at Cambridge have managed to combine two sets of mouse stem cells to start the process of embryo creation is mildly alarming, no? Shades of Aldous Huxley, Brave New World? These aren’t exactly embryos; a scientist friend prefers to call them embryoids, or proto-embryos, a bit like those brain-like organoids that can now be created to mimic the behaviour of actual brains. But it would seem that the Cambridge team may have come close to actual embryo creation; if it had added a third set of stem cells, the yolk, to sustain development, then it’s possible it would have gone on to develop an actual mouse embryo from there. But they held off in order to consider the ethical implications.
The next step is to create the same sort of embryoid with humans – though it’s often more difficult than we envisage to replicate results from animals in human models.
Britain’s best politics newsletters
You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in