Human Embryos News and Research

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Study shows new method for repairing disease-causing mutation in human embryos

Scientists have demonstrated an effective way of using a gene-editing tool to correct a disease-causing gene mutation in human embryos and stop it from passing to future generations.

3 Aug 2017

Research shows great potential of embryonic gene editing to prevent inherited diseases

Scientists have, for the first time, corrected a disease-causing mutation in early stage human embryos with gene editing.

2 Aug 2017

Expert highlights CRISPR’s applications, limitations, and ethical concerns

"Good morning, doctor, I am here for my gene editing appointment." In the future, could this be a greeting heard in physician offices around the world? With the introduction of CRISPR technology, genetic material can now be more easily and precisely edited, even creating changes that can subsequently be inherited by offspring.

1 Aug 2017

US scientists make advances in modifying human embryos

American Scientists have managed to edit and improve the DNA of human embryos in an effort to correct the gene defects that cause inherited diseases.

27 Jul 2017

MIT biologists identify how the immune system eliminates genetically imbalanced cells

Most living cells have a defined number of chromosomes: Human cells, for example, have 23 pairs. As cells divide, they can make errors that lead to a gain or loss of chromosomes, which is usually very harmful.

20 Jun 2017

Study suggests human embryos not susceptible to dying early as often claimed

How difficult is it to conceive? According to a widely-held view, fewer than one in three embryos make it to term, but a new study from a researcher at the University of Cambridge suggests that human embryos are not as susceptible to dying in the first weeks after fertilization as often claimed.

13 Jun 2017

Researchers receive federal funding to study consequences of West Nile and Zika virus infections

A Georgia State University researcher, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Florida State University, has received a five-year, $7.7 million federal grant to study the consequences of West Nile and Zika virus infections on the human central nervous system.

2 Jun 2017

CRISPR may not be as foolproof as earlier believed – gene editing tech leads to unwanted mutations

CRISPR-Cas9 is a revolutionary new gene-editing technology that has been called “molecular scissors” and has been one of the handiest tools for genetic engineers in the recent times. It makes cutting and pasting gene sequences almost as easy as it sounds. CRISPR has been hailed as a breakthrough in genetic engineering.

30 May 2017

Study sheds light on how different families relate to each other following open embryo adoption

EXPERTS at the University of Huddersfield are researching the emergence of a new style of family creation that sees couples "adopt" embryos and, after the child is born, remain in contact with the donors and in many cases develop a special relationship with them.

19 May 2017

Researchers create new tool that reveals insights into cellular development

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have created a new tool to describe the many possible ways in which a cell may develop. Rooted in the mathematical field of topology, the tool provides a roadmap that offers detailed insight into how stem cells give rise to specialized cells.

2 May 2017

Harvard scientists discuss promise and peril of emerging IVG technique

In vitro fertilization has transformed reproductive medicine and sparked a number of therapeutic and diagnostic breakthroughs.

12 Jan 2017

Researchers find new insights into silencing of X-chromosomes in human embryos

Researchers have discovered new insights into how one of the two X-chromosomes is silenced during the development of female human embryos and also in lab-grown stem cells.

16 Dec 2016

Researchers suggest need for human studies to examine effects of cannabinoid use during pregnancy

In this new era of legalized marijuana, far too little research has been conducted on the effect of cannabis on the development of human embryos, say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center who scoured medical literature on the topic and found what they say is worrisome animal research.

30 Sep 2016

Researchers uncover new clues about role of glucosamine in early embryonic development

Most pregnant women with well-controlled diabetes give birth to healthy children. But their babies run much higher risks of birth defects than babies born to women without diabetes, because very early in embryonic development, the babies are exposed to higher levels of glucose in maternal blood.

23 Jun 2016

New IVF-based technique can reduce risk of mothers passing on mitochondrial disease to infants

A new IVF-based technique is likely to lead to normal pregnancies and reduce the risk that babies born will have mitochondrial disease, according to researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Disease at Newcastle University.

9 Jun 2016

Transplantation of hpNSCs into non-human primates modeled with PD promotes behavioral recovery

A multi-center team of researchers in the U.S. testing the potential of cell therapy for treating Parkinson's disease (PD) has found that grafting human parthenogenetic stem cell-derived neural stem cells (hpNSCs) into non-human primates modeled with PD promoted behavioral recovery, increased dopamine concentrations in the brain, and induced the expression of beneficial genes and pathways when compared to control animals not transplanted with stem cells.

9 Jun 2016

New real-time imaging technique holds great potential in shaping assisted reproduction procedures

Researchers at A*STAR's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) have developed advanced microscopy technologies to monitor embryo development in real time, revealing how mammalian cells differentiate during the earliest stages of embryonic life.

23 May 2016

ISSCR releases updated guidelines for stem cell research, development of new therapies

The International Society for Stem Cell Research, the world's largest professional organization of stem cell scientists, today released newly updated guidelines for stem cell research and the development of new clinical therapies.

13 May 2016

New research shows molecular, cellular processes in human embroyo development

Despite significant biomedical advances in recent decades, the very earliest events of human development¬--those that occur during a critical window just after fertilization--have remained an unobservable mystery, until now.

5 May 2016

Researchers develop new technique to create naïve pluripotent stem cells

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have for the first time shown that it is possible to derive from a human embryo so-called 'naïve' pluripotent stem cells - one of the most flexible types of stem cell, which can develop into all human tissue other than the placenta.

7 Mar 2016