Gay Couples May Soon Be Able To Give Birth Without A Woman - Research

“The experiment used “parthenogenote” mouse embryos that were created by scientists. Those are all-female embryos made without any sperm, created by tricking an egg into developing as if it was fertilised.” the Independent reports.

“Usually, those embryos die after a few days because they are not properly programmed. But in the new studies, scientists found that they could inject them with sperm and transform them into normal embryos – and let them go on to produce healthy offspring.

“The study produced 30 mouse pups with a success rate of 24 per cent. That is far above the 1 or 2 per cent success rate usually found in the traditional method of cloning, by transferring DNA to donated eggs.”

“Our work challenges the dogma, held since early embryologists first observed mammalian eggs around 1827 and observed fertilisation 50 years later, that only an egg cell fertilised with a sperm cell can result in live mammalian birth,” said lead scientist Tony Perry, a molecular embryologist from the University of Bath.

“The practical applications of this as the technology stands at the moment are not very broad,” Dr Perry added.
But: “….potentially one day we might be able to extend what we’ve shown in these mitotic cells to other mitotic cells.”