Japanese scientists have “given birth” to a mouse with two biological fathers by generating eggs from male cells.
The sensational discovery could lead to a cure for severe cases of infertility, while also raising hopes that same-sex couples may one day conceive a biological child together.
“This is the first case of making robust mammal oocytes from male cells,” said Katsuhiko Hayashi, a world-renowned scientist in the field of laboratory reproduction and coordinator of the study at Kyushu University.
According to Hayashi, who presented the findings at the Third International Conference on Human Genome Editing held at the Francis Crick Institute in London on Wednesday, it will theoretically be possible to produce a human egg from a male skin cell a decade from now. Some, however, consider Hayashi’s prediction rather optimistic, since science has not yet been able to produce healthy lab-grown human eggs from female cells.
“Purely in terms of technology, it will be possible [in humans] even in 10 years,” Mr. Hayashi said, adding that he personally would be in favor of the technology being used clinically to allow two men to have a baby if it were shown to be safe. “I don’t know whether they’ll be available for reproduction,” he said. “That is not a question just for the scientific programme, but also for society”.
Previously, scientists had used a process that included complex genetic engineering to produce mice that technically had two biological fathers. However, Hayashi’s is a huge advance because for the first time viable eggs were grown from male cells.
If successfully repeated on humans, the method could be used to treat extreme cases of infertility, such as those of women with Turner disease – in which one or more copies of the X chromosome are absent.
