The news on 14 June that scientists had made “synthetic human embryos” caused widespread surprise and alarm. Sounds scary, right? Perhaps even, as an editorial in the Guardian suggested, like “playing God” and paving the way towards a dystopian “brave new world”.
The reality is different. For one thing, calling these “synthetic embryos” is rather misleading, even prejudicial – most scientists prefer the term “embryo models”, and they are made from ordinary human cells. And they are not new – the earliest ones were made years ago, although the scientists behind the latest work say they have been able to grow them for longer than before.
All the same, the work raises urgent ethical questions. In nearly all countries, embryo models are not covered (or not obviously) by existing regulations on embryo research. However, far from exploiting this regulatory gap, most scientists are keen to see it filled with new guidelines and laws about what is and isn’t permissible.
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Because they seem to mirror embryo development without being formally classed as embryos themselves, embryo models aren’t subject to that limit. They “allow us to carry out experiments that would be otherwise impossible on natural human embryos,” says [Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz of Cambridge University]. “Thirty to 40% of natural miscarriages occur around this developmental stage, [so] we hope that by understanding human development at this stage we might be able to do something to prevent this loss of life.”
