Several laboratories worldwide are working on the development of sperm and egg cells from adult female and male, respectively, as published by the British magazine New Scientist.
If ongoing experiments are successful, can be developed through the modification egg cells and male sperm from female cells.
This would allow gay couples formed by without needing to have children of opposite sex gametes, although the woman’s uterus would still be necessary for the development of pregnancy.
At present, investigations are in their infancy and many questions are raised about the safety and viability of offspring “artificial” as well as ethical considerations.
The most obvious problem raised by this case is to create sperm from female cells, which lack the Y chromosome, which has the genes that determine the male sex.
The female sperm would have to be created in laboratories with artificial chromosomes or chromosome sperm obtained from male donors, biological manipulation techniques “very extreme”.
However, since there have been some advances that scientists suggest that cells can be modified to achieve the opposite sex gametes.
The Brazilian team of researchers, led by Irina Kerkis, still has not shown that eggs derived from male cells are fertile for the viability of offspring, but they are moving human embryo experimentation.
If we achieve that sex cells are fertile, the next step is to determine whether eggs can be produced from adult cells modified to obtain the same result as with embryonic stem cells.
This step would use the cell reprogramming technique devised by Shinya Yamanaka of the University of Japan.
Other research aims to achieve sexual reproduction cell of the same sex was performed by a biologist at the University of Newcastle (England), Karim Nayernia, who has managed to turn stem cells from male bone marrow into sperm, and in the case of women, as a cell type prior to the eggs.
Karim Nayernia considered gay reproduction possible, though very emphatic in saying that, at present, is required much experimentation.
As if the technical progress, a patent analyst in San Francisco, USA, Greg Aharonian, is trying to patent the technologies that would make reproductive revolution.