Khaberni - Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University have uniquely proven the concept of treating infertility by converting skin cells into eggs capable of producing early human embryos. However, the application of this scientific accomplishment requires additional years of research.
This development opens up a potential field for gamete formation in the laboratory, which is a process for treating infertility in women of advanced maternal age, or those who are unable to produce viable eggs due to previous cancer treatments, or for other reasons.
Dr. Paula Amato, professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the university and co-researcher, said, "These experiments offer hope to millions of people suffering from infertility due to lack of eggs or sperm."
A step on the path of research
According to "Medical Express", researchers noted several limitations in their study, and they expect at least a decade of additional research before this approach is considered safe or effective enough to proceed to a clinical trial, even assuming such a trial is allowed in the United States.
Nevertheless, this represents a significant achievement in a promising technique to address infertility.
The scientific experiment
According to "MSNBC Health," the Oregon State University team in the experiment removed the nucleus from a human egg cell and replaced it with the nucleus from a human skin cell.
The skin cell contains two sets of chromosomes, whereas the eggs and sperm are supposed to contain only one set each that unite during fertilization.
Therefore, researchers encouraged the egg-like cells to shed the extra chromosomes, injected donated sperm into them, and stimulated their growth after fertilization.
About 9% of them lasted for 6 days in laboratory dishes, reaching the blastocyst stage of early embryonic development, before stopping the experiment.
The method of cell division
Co-leading researcher Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of the Oregon State University Health Sciences Center for Gene Therapy, said, "We have achieved something that was thought to be impossible. Nature has given us two methods for cell division, and we have just developed a third way."
The researchers described their technique as "equal division", referring to the combination of the two main known processes of cell division in biology.
Equal division produces two genetically identical cells from one cell, which is the basis of cell growth in any living organism.
As for reduction division, it is closely associated with the sperm and the egg in sexual reproduction, enabling the reduction of the chromosome number in each to half. This combination – in this case, through artificial fertilization – produces an embryo with the correct number of chromosomes.
