A group around LI Jinsong and others at the CAS Shanghai Institutes of Biological Sciences have developed a procedure to obtain haploid parthenogenetic embryos derived from human blastocyst stem cell lines. Haploid human embryonic stem cells have characteristics typical for embryonic stem cells, cells capable of differentiating into three germ layers in vitro and in vivo. In addition, these cells maintain genetic material with typical female imprint condition. The study proved that these cells can be used for large-scale genetic screening.
CAS news release, May 16, 2016