As scientists move closer to realizing the dream of humans having children without sex or IVF, there is much ethical and practical debate about it.
The newspaper explained,USS TodayControversy revolves around the fact that a woman’s egg or a man’s sperm are not needed to conceive a child, which helps solve many infertility problems due to various causes.
At recent meetings at the US National Academy of Sciences, researchers discussed the IVG approach, which promises infertile couples to have children without adoption.
Amrita Pandey, a sociologist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, said: Creating a perfect child and a generation free of disabilities and diseases is no longer science fiction.
“Revolutionary Event”
According to a study published last March, using the cells of male mice to produce eggs for the first time, several scientists have achieved the birth of seven young mice from male parents, which one researcher described as “revolutionary”. For Agence France-Presse.
The method used in the experiment is still far from being used in humans due to, among other things, a very low success rate and many ethical issues it raises.
However, this scientific advance raises hopes in terms of its potential reproductive effects, as it could allow a woman to have a biological child without the help of an egg.
The study, published in the journal Nature, is the result of research conducted by a Japanese team led by evolutionary biologist Katsuhiko Hayashi of Kyushu University.
“My main passion is to help people struggling with infertility,” Hayashi said in an interview last month. “What I do now is very basic biology.”
The team tested it on a male mouse after skin cells were taken from its ears and used in its ears before the researchers turned them into pluripotent stem cells. Any type of cell.
Like humans, male mouse cells contain XY pairs of chromosomes (chromosomes) and female cells contain XX pairs.
During this process, the researchers obtained about 6 percent of cells that had lost the Y chromosome, which gives them male characteristics, and then cloned the remaining X chromosome, creating a female “XX” pair.
The transformed cells were used to create eggs, which were fertilized by sperm from a male mouse and then implanted into the ovaries of surrogate mice.
In London, Hayashi cautioned against human genetic modification, saying there are still many obstacles to human experimentation.
Nitzen Konen, director of the Gender Determination Laboratory at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, described the study as “revolutionary”.
Jonathan Beirell and Diana Laird, two experts in reproduction and stem cells at the University of California, San Francisco, explained in the Nature magazine that there is no guarantee that a trial using human stem cells will be successful.
Open questions
In contrast, these promising trials raise questions about whether IVG can be considered safe in humans, and how many embryos should be sacrificed.
Here, Jonathan Beirell and Diana Laird, two experts on reproduction and stem cells at the University of California, San Francisco, point out that there is no guarantee that an experiment using human stem cells will be successful.
But they described the Japanese team’s findings as “a milestone in reproductive biology” that could be used to save endangered species with only one male capable of reproducing.
According to Ben Hurlbut, a biologist and historian of science at Arizona State University, before attending the National Academy of Sciences meetings, the experiments “misrepresent the sanctity of reproduction as an essential aspect of human life.”
“This makes it an industry project that will respond to customer demand in the future,” he added.
And he emphasized: “The child that is created is not for its own sake, but for the sake of others. . . that child is an expression of the desires of others.”
Many conference participants raised the issue of concern that 90-year-olds are having children or have had children.
Nevertheless, researchers and ethicists agree that it is okay to “hack on the genes” to cure a sick child.
Many conference attendees expressed concern that other countries may continue to pursue this research regardless of any ethical or scientific concerns.
Katie Husson, associate director for science at the Center for Genetics and Society, a group that advocates for the responsible use of genetic technology, explained that there is “self-interest and motivation in scientific research.”
He added: “It also prompts arguments that if we don’t, the government will overtake us, so this should be a banner of priority for us.”
And he continued, “The commercial profitability and marketing of these technologies may be a great incentive to move forward with them.”
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