Synthesising life: Getting closer to creating artificial humans?

Science fiction is fast morphing into reality. The latest such achievements are artificial embryos. Here's a look at the problems, pitfalls and potentials of this breakthrough

Set in 2540 CE, Brave New World — a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley — opens with a sequence at “Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre”, where young students are being introduced to the “Bokanovsky’s Process”. “One egg, one embryo, one adult — normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress,” explains the novel that was published way back in 1932.

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