The curved shape of a zebrafish egg causes unequal cell divisions, creating larger cells near the animal pole and smaller cells at the margin—a size gradient that controls the timing of everything ...

Biologists have provided new insights on a longstanding puzzle in biology: How complex organisms arise from a single fertilized cell. Producing a new 'gene atlas' with 4-D imaging, the researchers ...

Integrated screening and CRISPR reveal eleven previously unknown factors essential for early embryo development. They showed ...

In the earliest hours after fertilization, an embryo takes its first steps toward becoming a living organism by shedding maternal control and activating its own genetic program. This critical process, ...

The earliest days after fertilization, once a sperm cell meets an egg, are shrouded in scientific mystery. The process of how a humble single cell becomes an organism fascinates scientists across ...

A stretch of viral DNA in the mouse genome gives cells in early-stage embryos the potential to become almost any cell type in ...

A research team showed that, contrary to current models, one early embryonic cell dominates lineages that will become the fetus. “They are not identical,” said Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a ...

A new study using stem cell-based models has shed new light on how the human embryo begins to develop, which could one day benefit the development of fertility treatment. The study led by at the ...