| ■ Researchers Grow Sperm From Stem Cells | 06.07.12 |
| Women may one day concieve babies on their own, after British researchers turned stem cells from an embryo into sperm capable of producing offspring. A Newcastle University team led by Professor Karim Nayernia used embryo cells to produce seven baby mice -- six of which lived to adulthood. The animals were either too small or too large, and they died prematurely, however. Nayernia said that the advance could help men with certain types of infertility to become fertile or to remain fertile for longer. It might even one day enable a lesbian couple to have children that, at the genetic level, are truly their own, London's Daily Telegraph reported Monday. In the long term, Nayernia said, cloning methods could be used to turn a skin cell from a man into sperm and it might even be possible to do the same using a cell from a woman. The findings were published in the current issue of the journal Developmental Cell. |