Could eggs made from blood cells bring an end to infertility?

A lab in Japan has created human eggs from blood cells for the first time ever. 

The same research group also made sperm and eggs from the skin cells of mice – and successfully produced a litter of mice born of the skin-made eggs. 

The groundbreaking research holds a tempting glimmer of hope to end infertility, but with it comes a long list of ethical questions and quandaries. 

About one in 10 couples in the US struggles to conceive – and some of those are same-sex couples or hopeful single parents who have to rely on donated sperm or eggs, IVF and, in some cases, surrogates. 

If the research of Dr Mitinori Saitou and his lab at Kyoto University continues to show a much promise as it has so far, that could all change, according to a new Medium article. 

But some ethicists worry that closing the door on infertility could quickly open the flood gates to designer babies, eugenics and legal snags that our society may be unprepared to sort out. 

This photo shows mouse egg cells made from stem cells engineered from mouse skin cells. If a similar technique works in humans, it could end infertility  

‘There are lots of issues to fight about,’ says New York University bioethicist Dr Arthur Caplan. 

‘We don’t even agree on what we we should be doing if someone says they’re going to do an illegal experiment. When they [gene edited embryos] in China, nobody was ready for it. 

But research that could change the way we reproduce is happening, and moving ahead with surprising – even unintended – speed.  

HOW SKIN CELLS WERE FIRST TURNED TO SPERM  

Viagra, penicillin, X-rays, insulin: Some of our greatest medical discoveries were accidents. 

And some day, we might remember the technology that allows anyone to have children – potentially even with themselves – may share that legacy.  

Much of the origin story of sex cells and embryo development is still a mystery to us and, in 2011, another scientist, Dr Katsuhiko Hayashi decided he wanted to solve the sperm portion of equation. 

Scientists had recently discovered that they could effectively turn back the developmental clock on adult cells until the cells became stem cells, the undifferentiated foundation of all of the body’s tissues. 

Dr Hayashi figured he could use these cells to create sex cells, too, and that by observing that carefully controlled process he would learn how sperm comes to be. 

Dr Mitinori Saitou has turned human blood cells into human egg cells, a discovery that edges humanity closer to redefining reproduction 

Dr Mitinori Saitou has turned human blood cells into human egg cells, a discovery that edges humanity closer to redefining reproduction 

These sound like the investigations of someone who was trying to solve the problem of infertility.  

From what he told Medium, Dr Saitou isn’t actually particularly interested in the issue – but he ended up making a discovery that could alter the way we reproduce forever.  

Dr Hayashi was effectively trying to manufacture sperm out of skin. 

And he did, successfully. 

Next, he and his lab decided to make the other half of the unique combination required to make an embryo: the much more complicated female sex cell, the egg. 

Sperm is the smallest cell type in the human body, and is little more than a vehicle for genetic information. Eggs, on the other hand, are the largest and  equipped to sustain the development of embryos.

They are also more precious, in a way, than sperm. Women are born with only about 300,000 eggs and few have any viable ones left after age 42. Every time a fertile man ejaculates, he may release as many as 300 million sperm cells, and his testes will continue to produce more until his death. 

In 2016, Dr Hayashi and Dr Saitou published incredible findings. Not only had the pair and their team successfully made fully-fledged mouse egg cells from mouse skin in petri dishes, they fertilized the egg cells and used IVF to transplant them into a living mouse. 

Though only a small percentage of the embryos were viable, the mouse gave birth to eight live offspring, and only ate a moderate snack of two of her own babies, as is apparently a common practice among mice.  

Dr Saitou and Dr Hayashi parted ways, and Dr Saitou began tinkering with human cells. 

MOVING TO HUMAN CELLS  

Using the same development reversal, he turned back the clock on human blood cells and, for the first time ever, created an early-stage human egg in a petri dish, a landmark achievement reported in Science in September 2018. 

But getting a human egg to develop fully may require an ovary for it to grow in, a project that one of Dr Saitou’s lab members, graduate student Chika Yamashiro is now working on. 

Dr Hayashi and his team fertilized and implanted egg cells they'd made from mice's skin into a mouse, and she had eight live pups (the six she did not eat are pictured) 

Dr Hayashi and his team fertilized and implanted egg cells they’d made from mice’s skin into a mouse, and she had eight live pups (the six she did not eat are pictured) 

IVG OPENS AN ETHICAL CAN OF WORMS   

Even if she – or other research teams elsewhere in Japan, in China and at Cambridge University in the UK – manages it tomorrow, it’s likely going to be some time before the remarkable technology is available to people wanting children, according to Dr Caplan. 

‘It will move forward, but it’ll be a battle and it’ll probably take decades,’ he predicts.

Dr Caplan points out that this research brings up many of the same disquieting notions raised around cloning and stem cell research. 

It also raises a more fundamental social question.

‘When you realize that there’s a copy of your DNA sleeping in every cell in your body and realize you can wake that up with the right biochemical combination, that revelation really throws a wrench into thousands of years of the notion of who’s a parent,’ Dr Caplan says. 

If this process, known as in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), works in humans, ‘anybody’s tissue can be turned into sperm or an egg’ you could have children with ‘someone when they’re dead, before puberty, male or female. 

‘Suddenly the traditional notion of motherhood and fatherhood’ becomes much less clear. 

‘I could make an embryo with someone who I’ve never met. So this could be one of the biggest revolutions and challenges that our moral [sense] has ever faced.’  

As social notions of gender shift, IVG could offer a new opportunity to same sex couples who might otherwise have been unable to have children that shared both of their DNA. 

But this will also mean all manner of objections from religious groups. 

Plus, Dr Caplan points out, ethically, this simply may not be the most pressing need. 

‘It’s not like we have a worldwide shortage of sperm or eggs, and it wouldn’t be cheap so the technique is probably going to be used for the rich,’ he says. 

From a public health perspective, some might argue that the considerable funds needed for IVG research might be better applied to diseases that burden humanity. 

And the further forward IVG research moves, the more bioethical issues will arise. 

‘In animals, it looks like it works, but we’re not sure. We don’t know if IVG is really able to do what eggs do and we can’t be sure unless we experiment,’ says Dr Caplan. 

‘But there are many objections to making embryos this way and destroying them.’  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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