New embryo ethic quandry

The development of the world’s first synthetic embryos poses important questions for Christians, an evangelical scientist says.

Professor John Bryant was speaking to en after it was announced that Israeli scientists found that stem cells from mice could be made to self-assemble into early ‘embryo-like structures’ with an intestinal tract, the beginnings of a brain, and a beating heart.

They are called synthetic embryos as they are made without fertilised eggs. And as yet they do not have the potential to develop into living animals.