Scientists find way to produce egg cells from ordinary mouse embryo cells

[Marlena]

Check it out:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2003May1.html

What do y'all think? This could completely change the way we think of reproduction, and of sex roles with respect to the genesis of a new human being (not that old-fashioned sexual reproduction will likely be unseated from its primacy any time soon, of course).

[Delta]

[AdinaL]

hmmm...not sure.

As someone dealing with infertility...this sounds like it could be a huge boon to a lot of women. And I really do like the idea that a gay male couple might be able to have genetic children in this manner.


But part of it feels like tampering too much.

I don't know.

[Marlena]

Delta, what makes you angry and unhappy (and about what, the research or the potential applications)?

[Clarity]

gay people, men, infertility, or me! avoiding artificial hyperstimulation might be safer. I expect it will be a decade or more before this will be done for human reproduction. They are a lot of good and scary things about it...one thing is that we are close to being able to grow any type of specialized cell...like new organs!! much better option eventually than transplant. what about regrowing limbs, like for those children in sierra leone?

[Marlena]

Human application would certainly not be instantaneous. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't discuss potential implications now!

Clarity, the sad fact is that children in Sierra Leone and other impoverished nations will likely have an opportunity to obtain limbs regrown via tissue generations techniques only through research protocols. Witness, for example, what happened re the free provision of AZT to pregnant women in various African countries once research on the subject had ceased.

[Clarity]

Like those doctors who work for that charity to get surgery for children with facial disfigurement, a few will hopefully benefit even though they live in impoversihed countries through the efforts of some people in the profession...some of which seem to actually want to help people, instead of just wanting to patent the heck out of everything.

[Marlena]

Absolutely. Note, though, that a significant difference between Operation Smile (and similar offshoots) and hypothetical organ or limb transplant is that the latter will likely be exorbitantly expensive for the foreseeable future. It's not merely the organ itself and the equipment involved that make it pricy. Rather, it's the lifetime of immunosuppressant drugs that's the real kicker.

[miriam]

Experiements have been going on like this since the 1930's.

Sorry, but nothing is new.

Read the book,The Mother Machine , by Gena Corea.

Things this have been really going on for over 100 yrs.

A few men have been made pregnant in the last 28 yrs. The draw back is that they need to be castrated for the pregnancy to take, so that should shorten the waiting list a little bit.

OMNI magazine had an article about this in 1985, and there was quite a bit of research information in it.

The problem with most fertility procedures is that a side efffect of most of them is sterility and death.

Most people, not all, already do have children at home to care for when they go in for the fertility treatments. The woman who had the first testtube baby already had a child at home that she was caring for. It is unfair to the child already here to have a parent undergoing hormonal and drug treatments to become pregnant again while there is already a little one at home needing care and attention.

[miriam]

Hamster eggs are used to test the motility of human sperm cells. This is common in all laboratories.

NOthing new.

[Marlena]

There's a significant difference between an idea being new - the idea in question has a long history - and implementing that idea into a real and reproduceable procedure. The article concerns the latter, not the former.

Also, using eggs to test sperm's motility has nothing to do with the procedure in question. Your comment suggests that perhaps you should reread the article, Miriam.

[Clarity]

Marlena, as I understand the new research...it would be growing parts from someone's OWN undifferentiated cells for organ or limb replacement. Eliminating the need for the drugs. That's why it seems like such an exciting option to me.

[miriam]

I do not think it really matters what I think.