Kids may be made with skin, not eggs
Babies may one day be made with skin cells instead of a mother’s eggs after a breakthrough in biology.
Scientists at the University of Bath in England have made healthy mice by fusing sperm with a chemically modified cell in a world first that may herald a new wave of fertility treatments.
For two centuries, experts have believed it is impossible to create a foetus without a fertilised egg. The experiment is proof that this could be done with other kinds of cells, and possibly by melding the DNA from two skin cells.
This might allow gay couples to have babies with an equal mix of each partner’s DNA, according to Anthony Perry, a senior author in the study, who admitted this was a distant and ‘‘fanciful’’ prospect. He also suggested that women could use the technology to recover their fertility if their eggs were damaged by age or chemotherapy.
The team modified mouse eggs so they would develop into a type of proto-embryonic cell called a parthenogenote. They injected these cells with sperm 13 hours later. One in 10 of the ‘‘fused’’ cells grew into fertile mice who lived as long as the other mice that were naturally conceived.
The study suggests specialised cells such as those found in skin can be reprogrammed to ‘‘generate’’ embryos, although it is still unclear whether the same method would work in humans.
Perry said sperm from one man could be combined with biochemically engineered skin cells from another, although this would require scientific advances not yet close to being made.
‘‘We would fuse them together and then we would have a cell that was like an embryo,’’ he said. ‘‘It would be transplanted either into a surrogate mother or by then – because it would be many, many years in the future – we may have an in vitro womb.’’
Simon Fishel, managing director at the Care Fertility clinic, said the research was fascinating but a long way from being applied to human couples.
‘‘Mice aren’t human. Indeed, we are learning more and more that they are not an appropriate model, save for an approximate deduction,’’ Fishel said.
‘‘Hence, although it may be theoretically possible, it will take many years to understand the DNA and health risk to humans before contemplating such technology.’’