Israeli scientists grow fully formed mouse fetuses outside the womb

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Israeli scientists are claiming a major breakthrough as they have been able to take mouse embryos from their mothers and grow them outside the womb into fetuses with fully formed organs, the Times of Israel (ToI) reported Wednesday. Prof. Jacob Hanna of the Weizmann Institute of Science said this development “could be relevant to humans.”

In an interview with ToI, Hannah said it took him and his team seven years to develop the method by which they have now been able to grow “hundreds of mice.”

“We took mouse embryos from the mother at day five of development, when they are just of 250 [stem] cells, and had them in the incubator from day five until day 11, by which point they had grown all their organs,” Hannah said. “By day 11 they make their own blood and have a beating heart, a fully developed brain. Anybody would look at them and say, ‘this is clearly a mouse fetus with all the characteristics of a mouse.’ It’s gone from being a ball of cells to being an advanced fetus.”

“This could be relevant to other mammals including humans, though we acknowledge that there are ethical issues related to growing humans outside the body,” Hannah added.

The breakthrough was first published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, ToI reports. At the moment, the fetuses only live for 11 days, the longest they can survive in the incubator; they cannot be transplanted back into a mouse uterus. However, Hanna hopes his work will advance to growing mice to full term.

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