An international team of researchers has achieved an unprecedented milestone: the creation of mouse stem cells capable of generating a fully developed mouse using genetic tools from a unicellular organism, with which we share a common ancestor that predates animals.

In an experiment that sounds like science fiction, Dr. Alex de Mendoza of Queen Mary University of London collaborated with researchers from The University of Hong Kong to use a gene found in choanoflagellates, a single-celled organism related to animals, to create stem cells which they then used to give rise to a living, breathing mouse.