-Caveat Lector-
> From This Is London,
>
http://www.thisislondon.com/dynamic/news/story.html?in_review_id=412051&in_r
> eview_text_id=361415
> -
> Baby breakthrough for lesbians
>
> by Patrick Sawer
>
> Lesbian couples could soon be giving birth to babies that are genetically
> their own thanks to a breakthrough technique originally developed to help
> infertile men.
>
> Doctors believe they have discovered a way of fertilising an egg with
cells
> from any part of the body rather than sperm and have successfully used the
> method with mice.
>
> The Australian research, which complements efforts to allow women to
> "reprogramme" donated eggs with their own genetic recipe, was intended to
> aid couples to have a baby that is their own genetic offspring even when
the
> man has no sperm or even sperm-making cells.
>
> But fertility expert Lord Winston, of Hammersmith Hospital, warned that
care
> had to be exercised over these developments. "These are extraordinarily
> interesting experiments," he said. "But the issue of increasing importance
> with all these kinds of developments is whether genes are used correctly
> after fertilisation."
>
> One of the team from Monash University in Melbourne, Dr Orly
Lacham-Kaplan,
> admitted that, in theory, the technique could allow a lesbian couple to
have
> a baby, with one woman contributing an egg and her partner fertilising it
> with a cell. However, there could be a problem in combining the genes of
two
> women because certain aspects of development are controlled by male genes
> and vice versa. Dr Lacham-Kaplan added: "But we have no proof yet that it
is
> or is not a problem."
>
> Her team has fertilised a normal mouse egg by using a cell taken from the
> body of a male, an artificial gamete. Unlike sperm, the body cell has two
> sets of chromosomes, so to overcome this hurdle researchers employed
> cellular machinery used by unfertilised eggs to eject a spare set of
> chromosomes when it encounters sperm.
>
> During normal fertilisation, two sets of chromosomes in an egg are
separated
> and one is ejected in a package that biologists call the polar body,
leaving
> a single set to combine with another from the sperm.
>
> Following fertilisation of the mouse egg, Dr Lacham-Kaplan's team used
> chemicals to persuade the egg to carry out the normal fertilisation
stages -
> releasing its spare set of chromosomes into a polar body. But this time,
the
> body cell also expelled its spare set into a second polar body. The team
> thus had two polar bodies and a fertilised egg, with one set of
chromosomes
> from the mother and the second from the adult cell.
>
> "This was similar to an embryo derived from fertilisation by sperm," said
Dr
> Lacham-Kaplan.
>
> The embryos have gone on to develop relatively normally in the lab and the
> Melbourne team is now set to transfer them into the wombs of surrogate
mice.
>
> Once the animals have given birth, their offsprings' behaviour, genetics
and
> ability to reproduce future generations healthily will be tested. "Only
> then," said Dr Lacham-Kaplan, "we may be able to examine the technique in
> the human."
>
> A similar proposal to allow homosexual men to have their own children
> created a stir. It was suggested that a male egg would be created by
> removing DNA from an egg donated by a woman and swopping it with that from
> sperm.
>
> This too would be an adaptation of the technique under development which
> enables donated eggs to be "reprogrammed" with the DNA from an infertile
> woman so she can have her own children.
>
> --
> Dan S
>
>
>
> [ISML] Insane Science Mailing List
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>
>
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