Researchers Find Stem Cells Can Generate Human Eggs

• TA wrote on 2012-02-27 17:01

  Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital say they have extracted stem cells from human ovaries and made them generate egg cells. The advance, if confirmed, might provide a new source of eggs for treating infertility, though scientists say it is far too early to tell if the work holds such promise.
  
  Women are born with a complement of egg cells that must last throughout life. The ability to isolate stem cells from which eggs could be cultivated would help not only with fertility but also with biologists’ understanding of how drugs and nutrition affect the egg cells.
  
  The new research, by a team led by the biologist Jonathan L. Tilly, depends on a special protein found to mark the surface of reproductive cells like eggs and sperm. Using a cell-sorting machine that can separate out the marked cells, the team obtained reproductive cells from mouse ovaries and showed that the cells would generate viable egg cells that could be fertilized and produce embryos.
  
  They then applied the same method to human ovaries donated by women at the Saitama Medical Center in Japan who were undergoing sex reassignment because of a gender identity disorder. As with the mice, the team was able to retrieve reproductive cells that produced immature egg cells when grown in the laboratory. The egg cells, when injected into mice, generated follicles, the ovarian structure in which eggs are formed, as well as mature eggs, some of which had a single set of chromosomes, a signature of eggs and sperm. The results were published online Sunday by the journal Nature Medicine.
  
  Dr. Tilly and colleagues wrote that their work opens up “a new field in human reproductive biology that was inconceivable less than 10 years ago,” and that access to the new cells will make possible novel forms of fertility preservation.
  
  David Albertini, an expert on female reproduction at the Kansas University Medical Center, called the report “a real technological tour de force,” but added that it was not yet clear whether the procedure yielded real egg cells that could be used in human fertility. “None of the criteria that we in the field use to establish that a cell is a high-quality oocyte are satisfied here,” he said, using the scientific term for an unfertilized egg.
  
  Dr. Tilly has long disputed the accepted belief that a woman makes no new egg cells after she is born. In 2005, he reported that women possess a hidden reserve of cells in the bone marrow that constantly replenish the ovaries with new eggs. But other researchers have been unable to confirm these results, Dr. Albertini said.
  
  The new study is “along a completely different line” but still should be interpreted with caution, Dr. Albertini said, until other researchers have been able to repeat it, a routine verification procedure in research.
  
  Even if the research is validated, the immediate use of the cells in question would be to generate egg cells for research use, like testing the effects of drugs. Use in fertility treatments would be far off, Dr. Albertini said, because cells grown in the laboratory often develop abnormalities, a problem that would need correction before any egg could be accepted for fertilization.

  
  Source: NY Times
• BobYoMeowMeow wrote on 2012-02-27 20:27
  so they can generate an egg with specific genes?
• Akemii wrote on 2012-02-27 20:30
  Kitae was talking about this. We're gonna be phased out, and only women will rule da wurld :(
• Cynic wrote on 2012-02-27 20:34
  Awesome news.
  
  I look forward to the day when we can remedy all kinds of infertility.
• Rin wrote on 2012-02-27 20:37
  I can really see women on menopause getting in on this.
  
  "I realized I'm getting too old and I might die, so I want children of my own. But I'm on menopause, so I can't."
• Cucurbita wrote on 2012-02-27 20:46
  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
  
  Man, whats with this ridiculous timing.
• Akemii wrote on 2012-02-27 21:16

  Quote from The Hero Luka;788675:

  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
  
  Man, whats with this ridiculous timing.

  
  
  RIGHT?
• Kaeporo wrote on 2012-02-27 22:44

  Quote from Cynic;788667:

  Awesome news.
  
  I look forward to the day when we can remedy all kinds of infertility.

  
  
  I'm not so impressed. I don't see the value in allowing people to bypass natural selection and potentially pollute the gene pool with whatever detrimental genetric mutation that may have initially caused the aforementioned infertility.
  
  I understand that people feel the need to meet the status quo in order to feel like they've lived a "full and satisfying life" by having children but the possible result of reversing infertility on the population should be taken into consideration. That's one of the many reasons why I support homosexual relationships. Unlike heterosexual couples who would automatically choose to push out several new children, homosexual couples might find adoption of existing children to be a very real option.
• Cynic wrote on 2012-02-27 22:47

  Quote from Kaeporo;788733:

  I'm not so impressed. I don't see the value in allowing people to bypass natural selection and potentially pollute the gene pool with whatever detrimental genetric mutation that may have initially caused the aforementioned infertility.
  
  I understand that people feel the need to meet the status quo in order to feel like they've lived a "full and satisfying life" by having children but the possible result of reversing infertility on the population should be taken into consideration. That's one of the many reasons why I support homosexual relationships. Unlike heterosexual couples who would automatically choose to push out several new children, homosexual couples might find adoption of existing children to be a very real option.

  
  
  I don't see why people shouldn't be able to have kids if they want to. It's seldom a feeling of 'living life to the fullest' (actually, I wonder how you even came up with that). It's the want to have a child that is yours and in most cases, your partners. The act of bringing a new life into the world is something very special, one which you can't really understand unless you want kids yourself. Even if you have to wait until you find the right person or moment to spark it.
  
  Adoption is and never will be the same as having a child of your own. That doesn't make it wrong, it just means it's useless to compare the two in that way.
• TA wrote on 2012-02-27 23:47

  Quote from Kaeporo;788733:

  I'm not so impressed. I don't see the value in allowing people to bypass natural selection and potentially pollute the gene pool with whatever detrimental genetric mutation that may have initially caused the aforementioned infertility.
  
  I understand that people feel the need to meet the status quo in order to feel like they've lived a "full and satisfying life" by having children but the possible result of reversing infertility on the population should be taken into consideration. That's one of the many reasons why I support homosexual relationships. Unlike heterosexual couples who would automatically choose to push out several new children, homosexual couples might find adoption of existing children to be a very real option.

  
  
  I agree with this, to a point, but I do feel that what Cynic said does have some merit:
  

  Quote from Cynic;788667:

  Awesome news.
  
  I look forward to the day when we can remedy all kinds of infertility.

  
  
  In other words... I, too, look forward to the day when we can remedy all kinds of infertility. But... not necessarily just by creating eggs from stem cells. I mean actually genuinely eliminate all kinds of infertility, among other things.
  
  Though honestly, I think we're going to have to force infertility at some point if we ever succeed in eliminating aging.
• Cynic wrote on 2012-02-27 23:49
  A'course. But for now, it's baby steps. But until we get to that point in time, I'm not one to complain about the current methods used as long as the end product is the same. Or at-least considerably effective at attacking infertility in some way.
• Sumpfkraut wrote on 2012-02-27 23:53

  Quote from Kaeporo;788733:

  I'm not so impressed. I don't see the value in allowing people to bypass natural selection and potentially pollute the gene pool with whatever detrimental genetric mutation that may have initially caused the aforementioned infertility.

  
  Not a problem if you allow/make obligatory genetic modification. :awesome:
  
  It could be so awesome.
• TA wrote on 2012-02-27 23:57
  Designer babies. Do want.
• Cucurbita wrote on 2012-02-28 00:04

  Quote from Kaeporo;788733:

  I'm not so impressed. I don't see the value in allowing people to bypass natural selection and potentially pollute the gene pool with whatever detrimental genetric mutation that may have initially caused the aforementioned infertility.

  
  
  Natural selection for mankind ended a while ago. With modern comfort in life, medical care, and health, just about anyone, stupid or disabled, can continue their lives with children.
  
  If anything, switching to unnatural selection might be a vastly superior option. And this way we don't even have to kill anyone like TA is always suggesting. We can just phase out poor genes steadily.
• TLCBonaparte wrote on 2012-02-28 00:53
  I have long come to term that one day humanity as whole will extinct, so really I don't care how they screw with genetics because why not have some fun in the journey toward the end?