Japanese scientist creates mice with two fathers in breakthrough research
A japanese scientist claims to have created mice with two fathers by producing eggs from male cells.
The research, still in its early stages, involved turning male XY sex chromosomes into female XX ones.
The development, which was submitted for publication in the scientific journal Nature, raises the prospect of male couples having their own children.
Prof Katsuhiko Hayashi from Osaka University presented his findings that are yet to be published at the human gene-editing summit at the Crick Institute in London.
Prof Hayashi, an expert in the field, told the summit that he is working on developing fertility treatments that could potentially be available for humans in ten years.
‘If people want it and if society accepts such a technology then yes, I’m for it,’ he told the BBC.
‘Even in mice there are many problems in the quality of the egg. So before we can think of it as a fertility treatment we have to overcome these problems, which could take a long long time.’
The technique could eventually pave way for two men to have children related to both fathers and could also treat a type of infertility in women.
However, scientists believe that further research and ethical considerations would need to be done before the technique would be considered for humans.
The research involved creating a stem cell from a skin cell of a male mouse, and then deleting the Y chromosome and duplicating the X chromosome, allowing it to turn into an egg.
Just seven pups were born from 600 attempted implants but these pups went on to live healthy lives and even have offspring of their own.
It is not the first time scientists have attempted same-sex reproduction in mice. In 2018, Chinese scientists effectively bred mice from a pair of female parents.
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