Baby Mice Born from Eggs Made from Stem Cells Let that headline
sink in for a minute. At first glance, these mice look like
normal little critters, the standard-issue Mus musculus. And if
you looked at their DNA, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell
them apart from many other lab mice. Except these are special.
They were created from eggs that came from stem cells. Yep,
that’s right. For decades now, researchers have been able to
turn a specific kind of stem cell, embryonic stem cells, into a
full blown mouse. As amazing as it seems, that’s a pretty
standard lab procedure. An ES cell gets treated in a particular
way to create a “fake embryo”, then implanted into a hormone-
treated mouse and develops like a normal baby mouse. While that
is important for many experiments, it doesn’t help humans much …
especially humans with fertility issues. But these mice are
different. Stem cells, both embryonic versions and stem cells
created from skin (skin, I tell you!), were coaxed into becoming
eggs and then fertilized b