Scientists Make Embryos From Human Skin DNA For First Time (bbc.com) 51
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: US scientists have, for the first time, made early-stage human embryos by manipulating DNA taken from people's skin cells and then fertilizing it with sperm. The technique could overcome infertility due to old age or disease, by using almost any cell in the body as the starting point for life. It could even allow same-sex couples to have a genetically related child. [...]
The Oregon Health and Science University research team's technique takes the nucleus -- which houses a copy of the entire genetic code needed to build the body -- out of a skin cell. This is then placed inside a donor egg that has been stripped of its genetic instructions. So far, the technique is like the one used to create Dolly the Sheep -- the world's first cloned mammal -- born back in 1996. However, this egg is not ready to be fertilized by sperm as it already contains a full suite of chromosomes.
You inherit 23 of these bundles of DNA from each of your parents for a total of 46, which the egg already has. So the next stage is to persuade the egg to discard half of its chromosomes in a process the researchers have termed "mitomeiosis" (the word is a fusion of mitosis and meiosis, the two ways cells divide). The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, showed 82 functional eggs were made. These were fertilized with sperm and some progressed onto the early stages of embryos development. None were developed beyond the six-day-stage.
The technique is far from polished as the egg randomly chooses which chromosomes to discard. It needs to end up with one of each of the 23 types to prevent disease, but ends up with two of some and none of others. There is also a poor success rate (around 9%) and the chromosomes miss an important process where they rearrange their DNA, called crossing over. Prof Mitalipov, a world-renowned pioneer in the field, told me: "We have to perfect it. "Eventually, I think that's where the future will go because there are more and more patients that cannot have children."
The Oregon Health and Science University research team's technique takes the nucleus -- which houses a copy of the entire genetic code needed to build the body -- out of a skin cell. This is then placed inside a donor egg that has been stripped of its genetic instructions. So far, the technique is like the one used to create Dolly the Sheep -- the world's first cloned mammal -- born back in 1996. However, this egg is not ready to be fertilized by sperm as it already contains a full suite of chromosomes.
You inherit 23 of these bundles of DNA from each of your parents for a total of 46, which the egg already has. So the next stage is to persuade the egg to discard half of its chromosomes in a process the researchers have termed "mitomeiosis" (the word is a fusion of mitosis and meiosis, the two ways cells divide). The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, showed 82 functional eggs were made. These were fertilized with sperm and some progressed onto the early stages of embryos development. None were developed beyond the six-day-stage.
The technique is far from polished as the egg randomly chooses which chromosomes to discard. It needs to end up with one of each of the 23 types to prevent disease, but ends up with two of some and none of others. There is also a poor success rate (around 9%) and the chromosomes miss an important process where they rearrange their DNA, called crossing over. Prof Mitalipov, a world-renowned pioneer in the field, told me: "We have to perfect it. "Eventually, I think that's where the future will go because there are more and more patients that cannot have children."
As long as they require donor eggs...impractical (Score:2)
What they need to do to make this reasonable is grow an egg cell from some stem cell. It *should* be possible, but if anyone's working on it, I haven't heard about it.
Re: (Score:3)
It's being worked on, that's been part of current IVG research -- it's called artificial oogenesis. Reference: https://raf.bioscientifica.com... [bioscientifica.com]
This research group chose the path of a donor egg approach. That part isn't a big deal though, there's donor egg cells widely available. It's a good tech to have though, as it would likely reduce the costs.
Re: (Score:2)
It wouldn't make sense to work on both in the same line of research, though. Combining the two things comes later.
if anyone's working on it, (Score:1)
Huh (Score:3)
Looking forward to the skin walkers.
Procreating from sperm contacting skin? (Score:5, Funny)
Suddenly the average Slashdotter's chance of reproducing just went WAY up!
Re:Procreating from sperm contacting skin? (Score:4, Funny)
I've been collecting human skin for years!
Re: (Score:1)
Buffalo Bill? Is that you?
Send in the clones (Score:2)
I think that's a dark joke about lambs, which seems kind of fitting as a memorial to Dolly. Better of the two Funnies on the story, and I think two is above the recent average for Slashdot these years.
The angle I was looking for involved cloning, but nothing on that topic after the mention in the story's summary. One angle is that skin cells make it easy to clone other people who might prefer not. However the messy and potentially funnier angle involves super-rich super-greedy techno-lords who want to clone
Re: (Score:2)
why secret son, why not just a clone? i am sure if elon2 shows up tomorrow no one will be surprised.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure human cloning is still illegal. Not sure about all the jurisdictions.
I'm tilting towards being more sure that there are some human clones already running around, no matter what the laws say.
And I didn't even touch the least funny part of cloning--the training/indoctrination/torture required to create a "sufficiently compatible" replacement. Okay, so now I did touch it...
Re: Procreating from sperm contacting skin? (Score:3)
Evolution speaks (Score:3)
Eventually, I think that's where the future will go because there are more and more patients that cannot have children.
There's a reason for that, and they probably should NOT have children, unless we can also correct flaws in the DNA that does not allow them to have children, or we will breed a race of future humans that can only have children via methods like this....
Re: (Score:2)
unless we can also correct flaws in the DNA that does not allow them to have children, or we will breed a race of future humans that can only have children via methods like this....
Well, the thing about such (theoretical) technology is that you get to choose which one of a gene-pair is used. So that means filtering out genetic defects, including ones causing infertility. Skipping the crossover part of meiosis would make that easier, I imagine.
Of course they are a very long way from using this for actual births.
Re: (Score:2)
So that means filtering out genetic defects, including ones causing infertility.
This is not how genes work. Read a book.
Re:Evolution speaks (Score:5, Informative)
"unless we can also correct flaws in the DNA that does not allow them to have children"
Why on Earth did you just assume that they can't have children because of "flaws in the DNA"?
First off is a source of complete infertility which *every* woman encounters unless she dies young: age (menopause). As for non-age related causes:
Of partial infertility, the most common cause (~80-85% of cases) is PCOS. Literally 5-10% of women in the US of reproductive age have this. There is a genetic component, but environmental factors are probably the biggest contributor (it's on a hormonal axis that includes diabetes, and is related to excess weight, stress, etc, but also has some mild intersex characteristics, such as high testosterone levels, high AMH, etc; there's an interplay between hormones that's out of balance)
Other causes: uterine fibroids and polyps, endometriosis, etc.
Of full infertility: bilateral tube blockage is a relatively common one, such as from pelvic inflammatory disease (often caused by STDs), previous surgeries, past ectopic pregnancy, etc.
Primary ovarian insufficiency: either hitting menopause young, or never having normal ovarian function. Some causes are genetic, others are not - for example, cancer treatment.
Absence of a uterus: sometimes genetic, by far more common is due to hysterectomy (for a range of reasons). Though of course this would preclude pregnancy from this technique as well.
Genetic conditions that lead to streak gonads (undifferentiated between testes / ovaries) or the absence of ovaries, though these are rare.
So yes, genetic factors *can* be a cause of infertility, but far more common is non-genetic factors.
Re: (Score:2)
Not one thing you said negates the evolutionary factor I'm talking about. EVERY point you mentioned has a genetic component. The few times its not (environmental causes I suppose) is incredibly rare. You literally said "genetic component" or "genetic factor" on every point - except for age and PLEASE we do NOT need more old people having babies when the young people are having too many already. The low birth rate in western countries is not due to medical issues but due to societal choice and there's plenty
Re: Evolution speaks (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why? Because our shitty economies are based on perpetual population growth? I think the world would be a much nicer place to live in if the human population was eventually (over a century or two) whittled down to 1 billion. That would allow everyone to have enough space and resources as well as providing well beyond the minimum genetic diversity necessary for the healthy survival of our species.
Re: (Score:2)
Menopause has a genetic component? Exactly how much are you planning to reengineer the human race?
If you want to be pedantic, you can probably "find" genetic susceptibilities to literally anything, even dying of a car accident. But you're not going to blame a person dying
Re: (Score:2)
You literally picked the one thing, menopause, that is nature's way of saying "No more babies". I am over 50, so fuck off with your pedantry. The bureaucratic nightmare of adoption comes from people wanting *newborns*, not 5 year olds, or babies that look different than them. On any given day there's around 100,000 kids that need adoption in the USA with no one standing in line because people want babies that look like them or they can tell 'you're my real child', not 'someone elses' children.
Want t
Re: (Score:2)
All I was saying is that if we continue to manipulate DNA to the point where people who have DNA issues
You keep saying that without any evidence that the cause of reduction in birthrate is "DNA issues" which is the point of contention here. If the cause is actually environmental then you're purse clutching about nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
If the cause is environmental, then evolutionary pressure will reduce the birthrate and we'll either catch up or we won't. *Everything* is DNA issues when it comes to the birthrate, that's my point of contention. Live in a place with too much of a chemical or not enough of another, or too much heat or not enough? We can keep the DNA exactly the same and force artificial birthrate increases through tech, or we can modify the DNA to adapt. Its not hard to comprehend. We evolve our buildings, our food, our way
Re: (Score:2)
We evolve our buildings, our food, our way of life, why not our DNA to adapt to whatever problems, whether 'genetic disease' or 'genetic expression of environmental factors'?
Because there are too many factors at play for us to do that intelligently. The sensible thing to do is to reduce environmental pollutants, not to try to alter our DNA to tolerate them when we don't know what kind of second-order effects that will cause.
Re: (Score:2)
That makes no sense. But anyway, we do already have tech to "correct flaws in the DNA". There are many methods to do it, but currently the most popular method is called CRISPR.
Re: (Score:2)
My refrigerator has a CRISPR drawer. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all of these glow-in-the-dark carrots.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all of these glow-in-the-dark carrots.
They might go well with radioactive shrimp.
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes that makes sense, but meiosis and selection is generally a better approach. OTOH, it's not clear that this approach involves meiosis. But (IIUC) all current genetic surgery approaches have a high error rate, so selection would still be needed.
Re: (Score:2)
Could cause heated times (Score:3)
that should put fear of their god into the bigots .
Re: (Score:2)
obviously such creatures will have no soul and can be treated/traded as objects. /duck
Re: (Score:2)
Unlike the millions of people your Father murdered when it flooded the planet? Or all the first born it murdered rather than simply killing Pharoah?
Re: (Score:2)
Not forgetting that natural termination rates mean that sky-beard is the most prolific murderer of "babies" ever.
Re: (Score:2)
actually this means human skin cells shed by your father's "process" are baby deaths.
Great, a new risk of paternity suits (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In the case of an egg cell with a man's DNA, the paternity of the baby is also determined by the one providing the actual sperm. At this point, it would be in vitro - so that would make it even more surprising if it was unknown. It would be awfully hard to do all that and not have the unwitting DNA donor for the egg cell be unable to subpoena fertility clinic records.
Re: (Score:2)
while logical, your explanation is not generating enough FUD and thus cannot be accepted as valid.
Who the hell allowed this? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If I had kids they would look like--hey! (Score:2)
Anime did this already... (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone else remember the anime Vandred? Men and women figured out how to procreate without the other, their society divided between the sexes and warred with each other.
Even a vasectomy won't stop me... (Score:2)
...from having skin in the game.
time to ban sunscreen (Score:1)
I hear it causes autism
Going Blind (Score:2)
That's some fucked-up skin!