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Deepening our knowledge about human development can inform strategies to not only treat infertility and congenital disorders but also various diseases that occur in adulthood. However, possibilities to study human development in the woman’s uterus are very limited and it is not always possible to extrapolate results from model organisms to human context due to species specific differences. Importantly, recent years have seen an accelerated emergence of various 2D and 3D protocols to model different stages of human development in a dish. As a result, technologies such as human embryo models, organoids and direct differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells have started to complement experimental animals in biomedical research in providing valuable insights into human development. The editors of Nature Communications, Communications Biology and Scientific Reports invite submissions of primary research that showcase the use of in vitro models to widen our understanding about formation of the human body.