Medical Community Mobile Medical Information Platform "Medical World"

Written by | Yan Xiaoliu
In the past few decades, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has imposed a time limit on laboratory-grown human embryos: no more than two weeks after fertilization.
By the end of May 2021, the society announced it would relax the "14-day rule," considering on a case-by-case basis when to stop experiments on cultivating human embryos.
"Medical World" interprets this as "Human embryo research outside the body will break through the '14-day rule,' and the ISSCR has issued new guidelines." Some netizens commented, "After the abolition of the '14-day rule,' research on 'artificial wombs' may no longer be restricted, 'indicating that the era of industrialized reproduction is accelerating toward us.'"
This is not the first time that heated discussions about embryo research outside the body have led to attention on "artificial wombs."
An international organization aiming to visually present technological progress, the Dutch "Next Nature Network," launched a special feature in 2017 titled "Artificial Wombs: Timeline," which includes a large number of literary works, visual materials, physical objects, or models.
It features the world's first incubator, the first test-tube baby, the first book on "artificial wombs," and the first patent diagram of an "artificial womb," among others.
In March 2021, "Nature" published three research results in succession. These include successfully cultivating mouse embryos in vitro to 11 days, equivalent to the stage of a 5-month human fetus.
Additionally, under laboratory conditions, for the first time in human history, using non-reproductive human cells, researchers constructed a complete artificial human.