Digital embryo gives China a powerful tool to decode the secret of life: scientists
Scientists in
China have developed the world's first 3D model of early
mouse embryos , revealing how life forms in its initial stages at single-cell resolution.
The team said this was a first step towards a deeper understanding of how
diseases such as congenital heart defects develop, while providing insights into organ regeneration and
cancer treatment.
'Early organogenesis is a crucial stage in embryonic development, characterised by extensive cell fate specification to initiate organ formation but also by a high susceptibility to developmental defects,' they wrote in an article published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell last week.
The researchers are from Southeast University in Nanjing, BGI-Research, Fujian Medical University, Sichuan University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen, Guangzhou Laboratory and the University of Science and Technology of China.
Cell fate specification is the process where cells are guided by molecular signals and
genetic cues towards developing into cell types with different functions.
'A single fertilised egg gives rise to hundreds of cell types that form different tissues and organs. This process is intricately orchestrated. If abnormalities occur, they are likely to lead to diseases,' co-corresponding author Fang Xiaodong, vice-president of BGI-Research, said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Trailblazing mathematician Yitang Zhang leaves US for job at Chinese university
Chinese-American mathematician Yitang Zhang has left the United States to join Sun Yat-sen University in southern China as a full-time professor. The 70-year-old number theorist has been appointed to the university's newly established Institute of Advanced Study Hong Kong and will live and work in the Greater Bay Area , the university announced at a ceremony on Friday afternoon. While the university did not give further details about his appointment, it noted that Zhang had relocated to China with his family. Zhang spent a decade as a mathematics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Zhang is best known for his groundbreaking work on prime numbers. In a 2013 paper published in the Annals of Mathematics, he proved for the first time that infinitely many pairs of prime numbers are separated by a bounded gap. The result marked a major step towards solving the twin prime conjecture – a fundamental unsolved problem in mathematics – and reignited global interest in number theory. Born in Shanghai in 1955, Zhang showed a strong talent for maths from an early age. He was unable to attend high school during the Cultural Revolution but taught himself and was admitted to Peking University in 1978. In 1985, he went to Purdue University in the US for his PhD. After graduating in 1991, he struggled to find an academic position. To make ends meet, Zhang worked various jobs, including as an accountant, restaurant manager, and Chinese food delivery driver, and at one point lived in his car.
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Appendicitis surgery blunder puts spotlight on Hong Kong public hospital safety
A recent surgical blunder involving a doctor mistakenly removing a patient's fallopian tube instead of her appendix has cast doubt on Hong Kong public hospitals' ability to effectively implement safety protocols and allocate manpower, advocates have said. Caritas Medical Centre revealed the blunder on Friday, which began with a 48-year-old woman being admitted for appendicitis last Tuesday. A higher surgical trainee performed a laparoscopic appendectomy on the patient the next day but wrongly removed her fallopian tube after misidentifying the organ, an error attributed to 'tissue adhesion near the surgical site', according to the public hospital. The mistake was only discovered five days later, on Monday, after the patient's condition failed to improve and a pathology report on Wednesday confirmed the wrong organ had been excised, forcing her to undergo a second operation. The hospital apologised for the incident and requested its department of surgery to undergo a review of its staffing deployment, supervision and coaching, among other aspects. Alex Lam Chi-yau, chairman of patient advocacy group Hong Kong Patients' Voices, described the incident as 'extremely serious' and a throwback to another case in March last year in which a woman's uterus had been wrongly removed due to mishandled lab samples. The Hospital Authority said in March that it would adopt six measures after a series of medical blunders last year. They included building a database to log patients' post-operation wounds.
South China Morning Post
7 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Drunk Chinese man swallows spoon, thinks it was a dream, finds out mishap 5 months later
A Chinese man accidentally swallowed a coffee spoon while intoxicated in Thailand, believing it to be merely a dream for several months. Advertisement The 29-year-old, known as Yan, visited a doctor in Shanghai in June, suspecting he had ingested plastic while eating takeaway food. However, instead of plastic, the doctor at Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital discovered a 15cm long spoon lodged within him. The spoon was trapped in his duodenum – the first section of the small intestine. It was positioned precariously; even a slight movement could cause perforation of the intestine, resulting in inflammation or severe bleeding. The spoon became lodged in his duodenum, the initial section of the small intestine. Photo: It was at this point that Yan realised his experience in Thailand back in January was not a figment of his imagination.
