Embryo Models Made From Stem Cells Aim to Open the Black Box of Early Human Development

Transforming human stem cells into embryo-like structures was previously unthinkable. Yet seemingly overnight, multiple teams published initial results that reach towards this goal. Each team has a unique recipe for generating lab-grown embryoids, blobs of cells that mimic aspects of the earliest stages of human life. Although often dubbed "synthetic embryos," they are anything but. […]