Abstract
General introduction and brief history of human embryology, why study the human embryo and why grow embryoids in culture ? Is the human embryo a mammalian embryo like any other ?
This year's lecture focuses on the latest developments in the production and culture of human pseudo-embryos (embryoids). After a general introduction and a few historical points, this first lesson presents and discusses the main arguments justifying these studies, and places them in the current scientific and societal context ; why use human embryos and embryoids when other mammalian embryo models have already laid the foundations for the fundamental mechanisms of embryonic development in this group of animals ?
The reasons given include social and philosophical ones, but above all scientific ones, because, although the human embryo is a typical mammalian embryo, it nonetheless presents notable differences from embryos of other species generally used to understand mammalian development, such as mice or rabbits. It is essential to study these specificities of human embryo development if we are to better understand the crucial stages of this process, often inaccessible to the experimenter, with the future aim of alleviating certain problems affecting this embryo and its normal development, such as the apparently increasing infertility of our species, certain malformations or the undesirable effects of the environment. More simply, these studies should help to improve the general conditions of MAP.
