As a feast to the minds of stem cell researchers the recipe formulated for capturing authentic embryonic stem cells from mice is found to be applicable in rats other mammals including cows, pigs and even humans.

The new discovery made in labs at both the University of Edinburgh and the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, as a result of two studies, is a major breakthrough for biomedical research, said Qi-Long Ying, an author on both studies.

It will allow researchers to readily produce genetically altered strains of rats, with conditions that mimic human disease, in a very targeted way.

Austin Smith led the research team at the University of Edinburgh and Ying led the USC team.

The researchers said that humans and rats are physiologically more similar than humans and mice, making the study of rats more directly applicable to people, and rats' larger size also makes them easier to work with in many cases. Humans and rats also tend to have similar responses to drugs.

The results provided evidence to the notion that embryonic stem cells will remain in their undifferentiated, pluripotent state when they are shielded from particular outside signals. Pluripotent refers to the ability to differentiate into any cell or tissue type.

Embryonic stem cells are derived from the inner cell mass of blastocysts, which are hollow balls of cells that form in early development. The inner cell mass is a cluster of cells inside the blastocyst that goes on to form the embryo.