Magnetic resonance imaging of embryos: an Internet resource for the study of embryonic development

The recent amassing of gene expression data to study development in mammals has led to an increased demand for access to human embryological data. The difficulty of obtaining well-preserved human embryos presents an important challenge to studying human development. The Multidimensional Human Embryo project is generating an image data set based on magnetic resonance micros copy of specimens from the highly respected Carnegie Collection of Human Em bryos. The data are available from a web site to facilitate the work of cli nicians, investigators, and students of human development. A consequence of the project will be to preserve a highly respected, yet impermanent, colle ction of human embryos and minimize the need for collecting new specimens. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.