Hannah Devlin: There are already a group of scientists who have been working on this, I think informally since last year. They want to come up with guidelines that they hope the whole community in the UK and possibly beyond will form a consensus around. She says it's an incredibly technical area where you want the laws to be clear, but also to allow them to take into account future advances. Hannah: These models do prompt bigger, more philosophical questions in terms of what makes humans humans.
Scientists have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells in a groundbreaking advance that sidesteps the need for eggs or sperm. Madeleine Finlay speaks to science correspondent Hannah Devlin about her world exclusive story on this development, what it could mean for medical research, and whether the ethical and regulatory classifications of these embryos are keeping pace with the science. Help support our independent journalism at
theguardian.com/sciencepod