As scientists around the world have spent the last couple of years focusing their attention on stem cell research and technology, the latest news in that regard is the artificial sperm egg study: researchers have been able to recreate the human means of reproduction!
The new artificial sperm egg study means a huge breakthrough for the research on stem cells, which have been often dubbed as the future of medicine and even genetic engineering, due to the ability of these cells to recreate (or, in this case, create) tissue from scratch, a fact that has made life better for people across the world in tissue implants and even cancer research.
According to Science Daily, the artificial sperm egg study came from the University of Cambridge in conjunction with the Weizmann Institute. Their breakthrough was published on the journal Cell last Wednesday, under the title "SOX17 Is a Critical Specifier of Human Primordial Germ Cell Fate."
While the new artificial sperm egg study didn't exactly create the human eggs and sperm as a whole, according to CBS News, but they did form the germ cells that could in the future turn into maturity by becoming viable for ultimate conception, a fact that would greatly enhance fertility treatments around the world.
Culturing embryonic stem cells under controlled conditions for a whole week was what started the process behind the study. While it is not the first time this process comes to fruition, it is definitely the first successful attempt to perform it on humans, as previous tests had only involved rodents.
Currently, different countries such as the United Kingdom lawfully prohibit using artificial sperm or eggs on fertility treatments, according to The Guardian; however, this kind of legislation could change if faced with the positive results from the artificial sperm egg study, which seems to point towards new and still-unknown options in the field of fertility treatments.
