ON THE CUTTING EDGE: Seeing An Embryo Develop From A Single Cell In 3-D
Using a new high-powered microscope that scans tens of thousands of cells simultaneously scientists were able to watch three-dimensional images of a zebrafish develop from a single cell into an embryo with a beating heart. The technique – which doesn’t damage the embryo - was previously used to watch worms and other invertebrates with only a few hundred cells develop from single-cell stage, but this is the first time the process has been observed in a vertebrate – and the feat will soon be replicated with mice, chickens and frogs. “This is like being able to watch an animal getting a life,” developmental biologist Joachim Wittbrodt tells Reuters, adding, “[t]here are many implications for humans.” Indeed. One of those implications will be proving that contrary to what NARAL would have you believe, a human embryo is not a tumor-like clump of cells. Wittbrodt’s research with the digital scanned laser light sheet fluorescence microscope is published in the peer-reviewed journal Science.
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