STUDY SHOWS PLAN FOR HUMANBODY IS LAID OUT MOMENTS AFTER CONCEPTION

OXFORD, UK, July 9, 2002 (LSN.ca) - Richard Gardner, anembryologist at the University of Oxford, UK, has repeated little known

experiments first conducted in the 1980s in Flushing, NewYork by Jean Smith of Queen's College which demonstrate that the human

body is shaped beginning at the moment ofconception/fertilization. Whichside of the microscopic embryo will form the back and

head, are not left to later development as has been believedby embryologists, but are set out in the minutes and hours after the

sperm and egg unite to form a new human being.

The July 4 issue of the scientific journal Nature reportsthat "Just five years ago...mammalian embryos were thought to spend their

first few days as a featureless orb of cells. Only later, atabout the time of implantation into the wall of the uterus, were cells

thought to acquire distinct 'fates' determining theirpositions in the future body."

Researchers tagged specific points on mammalian embryos(blastocysts) shortly after fertilization successfully demonstrating that

they come to lie at predictable points in the embryo."Rather than being a naive sphere, it seems that a newly fertilized egghas a

defined top-bottom axis that sets up the equivalent axis inthe future embryo," says Nature. Some studies suggest that such

differentiation happens as early as the two celled stage.

The journal concludes from the study: "What is clear isthat developmental biologists will no longer dismiss early mammalian embryos

as featureless bundles of cells - and that leaves them withsome work to do."

See the story in the journal Nature:

Nature 418, 14 - 15 (04 Jul 2002) DOI: 10.1038/418014a NewsFeature

(link available only with paid registration or you maypurchase full article):

http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v418/n6893/full/418014a_fs.html