NFXBio: The Promise of Synthetic Embryos with Dr. Jacob Hanna of Renewal Bio

The NFX Podcast

We're highlighting a breakthrough moment - this summer, Dr. Jacob Hanna, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science published a paper demonstrating that synthetic mouse embryos could be grown outside the womb, without an egg or sperm. This is a major advance that was covered by Nature, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and others. Today, the head of NFXBio Omri Amirav-Drory is sitting down with Dr. Hanna to discuss how we reached this milestone, what it means for science, and how entrepreneurship can help bring this technology out of the lab. (0:00) Introduction to synthetic embryos and Dr. Jacob Hanna (4:25) Discussion on growing mouse embryos outside the uterus (7:48) Self-organizing stem cells and their role in synthetic embryos (14:15) Future possibilities and limitations of synthetic embryo development (17:04) Potential treatment of diseases with synthetic embryo technology (20:47) Scientist founder's journey and commercialization of synthetic embryo technology (25:01) Closing remarks and thanks