Babies From Skin Cells? Catholics Decry Research Breakthrough Over Human Egg Creation

This process essentially creates a 'three-parent embryo.'

Regarding the conception of human children: What if mothers could be removed from the equation?

It’s a thought experiment that points to an idea so preposterous and unnatural that it seems almost incoherent. But researchers at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland published a paper Sept. 30 chronicling a process that could lead to exactly that — human eggs created from other human cells, such as skin cells, rather than produced naturally by a woman’s body.

The research presents the first proof-of-concept of a method of manipulating skin and other human cells to mimic oocytes — eggs — through a process the researchers have termed mitomeiosis, a variant of a long-heralded process called in vitro gametogenesis (IVG).

The Oregon scientists say they managed to produce 82 human eggs, which they then fertilized using donor sperm. Most of the embryos stopped developing after just a few cell divisions, and almost all displayed genetic abnormalities that would have prevented them from ever developing further as healthy babies.

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