Human Spine Formation In A Model System

Environmental & Science Education, STEM, Evolutionary Biology, Nature of Science, History of Science, Science & Society, Models

Ed Hessler 

The editor of Nature News wrote the following to describe a short article and laboratory film (2 m 37 s).

Artificial human embryos allow scientists to watch how a lump of tissue lengthens and segments to form a spine. The embryo surrogates are created from pluripotent stem cells, which differentiate into embryonic structures when exposed to chemical signals. The researchers were able to model human congenital spine diseases such as scoliosis by disrupting the artificial spine’s development.

This very short article in today's issue of Nature includes the link to the video.  The article includes definitions or description of major terms used in the film that are likely to be new.

The research is awesome. I never imagined it would be possible to actually see "how" a human spine forms in an embryo.