For the first time, scientists have grown a human egg from stem cells in a laboratory. The next stage will be her fertilization in the laboratory, if scientists get permission, the Independent reported in its Sunday issue.
Scientists from the University of Edinburgh in collaboration with the Harvard School of Medicine are the first to produce mature human egg cells from stem cells extracted from ovarian tissue.
To date, a relatively small number of mature human ova have been retrieved from hormonally stimulated ovaries. This method – as the newspaper writes – has its technical limitations, which caused cell shortages during in vitro fertilization and research.
If the scientists obtain approval from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HEFA), which supervises research on human cells, they intend to fertilize egg cells obtained from stem cells with male sperm later this year to see if they are developing properly.
If an embryo is formed, it will be tested for 14 days, which is currently the maximum legal limit for such experiments, after which it will either be frozen or die. As experimental material, it will not be implanted into a woman.
Independent says the experiment could transform existing artificial insemination techniques and make a woman fertile later in life.
Obtaining human eggs opens up the possibility of replenishing the ovaries in older women to protect them from menopausal diseases ranging from osteoporosis to heart disease, the newspaper adds.
Prof. Jonathan Tilly of the Harvard School of Medicine questions the widely accepted view that a woman is born with a full set of eggs, which she gradually loses into the menopause. According to him, the belief that a set that has been used once cannot be supplemented is untrue.