Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz – författare

'Quite simply the best book about science and life that I have ever read' - Alice Roberts How does life begin? What drives a newly fertilized egg to keep dividing and growing until it becomes 40 trillion cells, a greater number than stars in the galaxy? How do these cells know how to make a human, from lips to heart to toes? How does your body build itself?Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz was pregnant at 42 when a routine genetic test came back with that dreaded word: abnormal. A quarter of sampled cells contained abnormalities and she was warned her baby had an increased risk of being miscarried or born with birth defects. Six months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy and her research on mice embryos went on to prove that – as she had suspected – the embryo has an amazing and previously unknown ability to correct abnormal cells at an early stage of its development. The Dance of Life will take you inside the incredible world of life just as it begins and reveal the wonder of the earliest and most profound moments in how we become human. Through Magda’s trailblazing research as a professor at Cambridge – where she has doubled the survival time of human embryos in the laboratory, and made the first artificial embryo-like structures from stem cells – you’ll discover how early life is programmed to repair and organise itself, what this means for the future of pregnancy, and how we might one day solve IVF disorders, prevent miscarriages and learn more about the dance of life as it starts to take shape.The Dance of Life is a moving celebration of the balletic beauty of life’s beginnings.

This collection explores the use of pluripotent cells to generate early embryo-like structures in vitro, with the resultant 3D embryo-like structures in vitro phenocopying many of the developmental landmarks and 3D architectures seen normally in vivo. The protocols gathered herein cover diverse aspects of the topic and exemplify some of the key developments and improvements in the field. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step and readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and practical, Embryo Models In Vitro: Methods and Protocols serves as an ideal guide to these exciting and innovative advances in developmental biology.