In the earliest hours after fertilization, an embryo takes its first steps toward becoming a living organism by shedding maternal control and activating its own genetic program. This critical process, ...

Study finds early-stage ectoderm cells are especially susceptible, raising questions about potential developmental risks ...

Descriptions of the embryo go back at least to the time of Aristotle, but it has only been since the late 19 th century and early 20 th century that advances in experimental approaches allowed ...

Researchers have developed a new stem cell model of the mature human amniotic sac, which replicates development of the tissues supporting the embryo from two to four weeks after fertilization. This is ...

Researchers have discovered a potential 'pause button' in the earliest stages of human development. Whether humans can control the timing of their development has long been debated. The new study ...

A team of scientists has just gotten a closer peek into one of the earliest and most fundamental steps of creating a human life. Research out today highlights how they captured—for the first ...

The discovery of a gene essential to early embryonic development sheds light on the preliminary stages of human placenta formation. A team led by scientists from the University of California San Diego ...

An international team of scientists led from Sweden's Karolinska Institutet has for the first time mapped all the genes that are activated in the first few days of a fertilized human egg. The study, ...