Ever wondered how groups of cells managed to build your tissues and organs while you were just an embryo?

Using state-of-the-art techniques he developed, UC Santa Barbara researcher Otger Campàs and his group have cracked this longstanding mystery, revealing the astonishing inner workings of how embryos are physically constructed. (Hint: the process has similarities to 3D printing and glass molding.) Not only does it bring a century-old hypothesis into the modern age, but the study and the techniques used in it also provide the researchers a foundation to study other key questions related to human health, such as how cancers form and spread or how to engineer organs.

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