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XY Gets Axed: Sperm Created from Female Bone Marrow
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by Jordan Yerman | February 2, 2008 at 10:37 am
721 views | 0 Recommendations | 1 comment
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In the article below, by "ready" they really mean "years away from any sort o freliable application", so nobody has anything to picket for/against just yet. Meanwhile, a quick jaunt through the web with search terms like "female, marrow, sperm" digs up breathlessly-titled articles like "The End of Men" and "Men Obsolete?".
However, the risk of birth defects is a spectre that looms over this whole procedure: nobody really knows what would happen during development of a child conceived with only XX (no XY) or XY (no XX) chromosomes.
British scientists are ready to turn female bone marrow into sperm, cutting men out of the process of creating life.The breakthrough paves the way for lesbian couples to have children that are biologically their own.
Gay men could follow suit by using the technique to make eggs from male bone marrow.
Researchers at Newcastle upon Tyne University say their technique will help lead to new treatments for infertility.
But critics warn that it sidelines men and raises the prospect of babies being born through entirely artificial means.
The research centres around stem cells - the body's 'mother' cells which can turn into any other type of cell.
According to New Scientist magazine, the scientists want to take stem cells from a woman donor's bone marrow and transform them into sperm through the use of special chemicals and vitamins.
Newcastle professor Karim Nayernia has applied for permission to carry out the work and is ready to start the experiments within two months.
The biologist, who pioneered the technique with mice, believes early- stage 'female sperm' could be produced inside two years. Mature sperm capable of fertilising eggs might take three more years.
Early-stage sperm have already been produced from male bone marrow.
[q
url="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11601-bone-stem-cells-turned-into-primitive-sperm-cells.html"]n
a first step towards creating artificial sperm cells, researchers have
turned human bone marrow tissue into primitive sperm cells.
If these precursor cells can be coaxed into becoming fully
functioning sperm cells, the technique could allow infertile men to
father their own children, and even allow women to produce their own
sperm. But experts caution that provoking the sperm precursors to fully
mature presents a serious challenge.[/q]
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 17:12 on September 17th, 2008
Being 50% of a couple that is of the same sex and wants children I think the idea of being able to have our own babies is amazing and a GREAT thing. On the other hand, being a woman who is sensitive to the needs of others, I would say I fear for the children that are going to be born under this method. Lord knows what kinds of defects, issues and consequences these children will have to suffer from being born this way and in the end I'm of the mind things should just stay the way they are. There is a reason women and men are supposed to produce children and not woman/woman or man/man couples. I'm all for gay/lesbian couples prodcuding their own children, but I was hoping that would happen naturally, through adaption, over time; not artificially via science. I think that's playing a dangerous game and the only people that will suffer are these poor children. That's pure selfishness.