Aggregated News
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Scientists in Japan have created a "womb" for incubating artificially fertilised eggs in their earliest days, helping them grow nearly as fast as they would in the uterus, a researcher said on Friday.
Currently, test-tube human embryos are kept in "microdroplets" -- a mixture of mineral oil and culture fluid to keep them from drying out.
But that lags the superior conditions provided by the womb and artificially fertilised embryos tend to grow a lot slower in microdroplets compared to naturally conceived embryos.
This is not ideal because larger, faster-growing embryos are believed to stand a better chance of survival after being reinserted back into the mother's womb.
In the latest issue of New Scientist Magazine, researchers in Japan said they had devised a "chip" measuring 2 mm across and 0.5 mm high, which they said simulates more closely the conditions of a natural womb.
Fresh IVF embryos are slipped into the chips, which rest on a membrane of cultured uterus cells. Once they are ready to attach themselves to the uterus wall, the eggs are...