Putting aside DNA, is it even possible to emulate the whole birth process sythenticly. For example, currently would a surrogate birth mother be required and is this likely to change?
There are too many, rarely understood processes involved in fertilisation and subsequent embryogenesis. I don't think we can fully create a human (or even other complex life forms) fully synthetically. Rather, i think scientists would just exploit tried and tested natural mechanisms such as embedding half of the synthetic genome into the spermatazoon with the other half residing in the oocyte and letting "nature" take its course.
There's just too much knowledge we're missing right now (even the calcium signalling cascade initiated by the sperm fusing with the egg isn't fully understood). Of course, who knows where we'd be in 10, 20, 50 or 100 years?
Scientists recently got excited when the lengthened the petri dish lifetime of human embroyosvuntil,at least 14 days from a previous record of 7 days. The shorter time was sufficient of IVF. But too short understand embroyo development.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/05/04/47653955...
Currently there is a moratorium of embryos longer than 14 days. That is when tissues start differentiating and embroyos has become implanted in the womb.
