The prospect of all-female conception

[Al-khiyal]

13 April 2007 -- Women might soon be able to produce sperm in a development that could allow lesbian couples to have their own biological daughters, according to a pioneering study published today.

Scientists are seeking ethical permission to produce synthetic sperm cells from a woman's bone marrow tissue after showing that it possible to produce rudimentary sperm cells from male bone-marrow tissue.

The researchers said they had already produced early sperm cells from bone-marrow tissue taken from men. They believe the findings show that it may be possible to restore fertility to men who cannot naturally produce their own sperm.

But the results also raise the prospect of being able to take bone-marrow tissue from women and coaxing the stem cells within the female tissue to develop into sperm cells, said Professor Karim Nayernia of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Creating sperm from women would mean they would only be able to produce daughters because the Y chromosome of male sperm would still be needed to produce sons. The latest research brings the prospect of female-only conception a step closer.

"Theoretically is it possible," Professor Nayernia said. "The problem is whether the sperm cells are functional or not. I don't think there is an ethical barrier, so long as it's safe. We are in the process of applying for ethical approval. We are preparing now to apply to use the existing bone marrow stem cell bank here in Newcastle. We need permission from the patient who supplied the bone marrow, the ethics committee and the hospital itself."

If sperm cells can be developed from female bone-marrow tissue they will be matured in the laboratory and tested for their ability to penetrate the outer "shell" of a hamster's egg - a standard fertility test for sperm.

"We want to test the functionality of any male and female sperm that is made by this way," Professor Nayernia said. But he said there was no intention at this stage to produce female sperm that would be used to fertilise a human egg, a move that would require the approval of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

The immediate aim is to see if female bone marrow can be lured into developing into the stem cells that can make sperm cells. The ultimate aim is to discover if these secondary stem cells can then be made into other useful tissues of the body, he said.

The latest findings, published in the journal Reproduction: Gamete Biology, show that male bone marrow can be used to make the early "spermatagonial" stem cells that normally mature into fully developed sperm cells.

"Our next goal is to see if we can get the spermatagonial stem cells to progress to mature sperm in the laboratory and this should take around three to five years of experiments," Professor Nayernia said.

Last year, Professor Nayernia led scientists at the University of Gottingen in Germany who became the first to produce viable artificial sperm from mouse embryonic stem cells, which were used to produce seven live offspring.

His latest work on stem cells derived from human bone marrow suggests that it could be possible to develop the techniques to help men who cannot produce their own sperm naturally.

"We're very excited about this discovery, particularly as our earlier work in mice suggests that we could develop this work even further," Professor Nayernia said.

Whether the scientists will ever be able to develop the techniques to help real patients - male or female - will depend on future legislation that the Government is preparing as a replacement to the existing Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.

A White Paper on genetics suggested that artificial gametes produced from the ordinary "somatic" tissue of the body may be banned from being used to fertilise human eggs by in vitro fertilisation.

The prospect of all-female conception

[Al-khiyal]

Reproduction: Gamete Biology

[Al-khiyal]

Making babies without men - a literary view



LYSISTRATA

Aristophanes (c. 411BC)

After 21 years of war, the women of Athens, led by Lysistrata, take matters into their own hands. Lysistrata suggests every wife and mistress should refuse all sexual favours until peacetime. Before long it proves effective, peace is concluded and the play ends with festivities.

HERLAND

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1914)

On the eve of the First World War, an isolated society entirely comprising Aryan women is discovered by three male explorers. The women reproduce asexually and live in an ideal society without war and domination. This feminist utopia is a 20th-century vehicle for Gilman's then-unconventional views of male and female behaviour, motherhood, individuality, and sexuality. It is said to be based on Gilman's version of utopia through Aryan separatism.

THE DISAPPEARANCE

Philip Wylie (1978)

At four minutes and 52 seconds past four one afternoon, the world shatters into two parallel universes as men vanish from women and women from men. With families and loved ones separated from one another, life continues very differently as an explosion of violence sweeps one world while stability and peace break down in the other.

THE CLEFT

Doris Lessing (2007)

In her novel, which has made this year's International Man Booker shortlist, Lessing portrays a group of near-amphibious women who have no need of men, known as Squirts, as they are impregnated by the wind, wave or moon. But this is no feminist utopia: the women behave brutally, mutilating male babies before placing them on a rock for eagles to devour. The eagles turn out to be the men's allies, transporting the babies to the forest where they are suckled by does. Lessing reveals she was inspired by a scientific claim that "the primal human stock was probably female, and that males came along later, as a kind of cosmic afterthought".

[amalgamate]

That's revolting! how despicable... female synthetic sperm? it will never be successful. if at all they try it out- they'll face abnormalities. one cannot recreate functional sperm from an unnatural source and deem it 'pioneering'. that's not pioneering- that's poisoning. it's a catastrophe, -internal human combustion- that's what it is.




besides, with 'easier access' there's more vulnerability for STD's.

[Bent_Bladi]

It'd be nice for infertile men to get sperm made from their bone marrow - that sounds ethical enough................

bas to make sperm from a WOMAN??!!! Are these people freakin CRAZY!!! EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!! That is so wrong and unnatural and disgusting and 50000000000000000% EW

You're right, amal. If this somehow (hopefully not) gets out for public use - then new diseases will come out as well. I remember reading somewhere that with every new sin - Allah creates a new disease. This is a major sin --- iwli iwli iwli --- People will go crazy -- maybe men will die out or something (). That's the worst idea ever... al sperm from women al *barfs*


...those books look interesting though . Thanks for posting

[amalgamate]

Will science render men unnecessary?
The possibility seems real but don't drop your guy just yet

By Brian Alexander
MSNBC contributor
June 27, 2007

I normally don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about my sperm.

But recently a team of scientists announced they had made artificial sperm from human bone marrow, and media reports abounded with the dire news that my goodfellas (and by extension, me) had been rendered unnecessary.

If a woman chose to do so, speculated tabloid journalists, she could make sperm from her own bone marrow, fertilize another woman’s egg — and voila!

“Men could be completely sidelined,” according to Britain’s Daily Mail.

“Women to Self Create,” blared the headline in Australia’s Daily Telegraph.

“Men beware!” began a story on one U.S. news Web site.

There are at least half a dozen reasons why such speculation is silly, some scientific and some practical. For example, as long as sex feels good and remains no more expensive than dinner and a bottle of wine, most people will use natural-grown sperm.

Still, suggests Gregory Stock, director of the program on medicine, society and technology at the UCLA School of Medicine and the CEO of a biotech company called Signum Biosciences, it is very interesting that there were any stories at all. Experiments have created eggs and sperm, so-called artificial gametes, from embryonic stem cells and other cell types for years now with limited success, so the bone marrow work does not represent a giant leap. And the stories are reminiscent of some that were printed 10 years ago when the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, was announced. We men were declared washed up then, too.

Stock, author of the book “Redesigning Humans,” believes there were so many stories recently because such experiments are as much symbol as science. “The importance is just the idea of two women having a child, one creating sperm and other having an oocyte [egg]. Well, what does that say about marriage laws? About whether men are needed? There are all sorts of ways that play into our psyche, who and what we are, what relationships are all about, the limits of the technological vision of ourselves.”

I just want to know why you women are in such a rush to get rid of us. Sci-fi and fantasy literature are full of all-female societies like Wonder Woman’s home island. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd penned a friendly little book in 2005 called “Are Men Necessary?” Are you trying to give us a complex or something?

A world without our sperm

So permit me to run with the tabloid visionaries and see where men wind up in a world that does not need our sperm because you ladies are out there making them on your own.

Hmmm. In the near term, men may not be much different than the present. “The concept here that resonates with people is the idea of men not being necessary in some way,” Stock suggests. “But men are not really necessary at this point either.”

Well, strictly in terms of keeping the human species alive, you women need some of us. You just don’t need all that many of us (though we would prefer to keep that under our hats, if we wore hats). We make a glut of sperm, millions of them, so one man can spread a lot of seed.

Sperm banking has long been an important part of in vitro fertilization, just as bull semen is integral to dairy production. Frankly, you only need a small tribe of us guys equipped with porn magazines and plastic cups. You could feed us, groom us and give us a little exercise — pretty much like you do now.

[amalgamate]

Continued...


Since sperm has already been made from embryonic stem cells, “it is easy to see how stem cells could go from just being used for research purposes to being used to have kids,” suggests David Magnus, director of Stanford University’s Center for Biomedical Ethics. “Of course you have the dilemma of needing human experiments but looking at the history [of IVF], that hasn’t stopped people and so far it has worked out pretty well.”

So let’s assume stem cells are used to treat couples lacking sperm, and then to provide lesbian couples with sperm that are genetically theirs, and then a few heterosexual women say, “Who needs men?”

Once a worldwide network of stem cell banks is established (already starting, by the way), the raw material represented by the cells could be used to make any kind of cell in the body, including sperm. Catalogs could be produced the way listings of sperm donors are created now, outlining features and benefits. Women could make a toll-free call.

Stag colonies of men eating Doritos?
Being a man, I will assume that most women would prefer to give birth to female babies, girls being far more competent, intelligent and with less propensity to crash motorcycles. Two hundred years from now, a few isolated stag colonies are inhabited by men who have mutated to survive solely on Doritos. Male language has been reduced to a single word: “Wassup!”

As a guy, I’m not sure that sounds all bad. I like Doritos, and I would no longer pay taxes or shout at my TV when I see certain politicians. The world’s problems would be somebody else’s burden.

Have at it, ladies!

Of course, I don’t really expect to find myself living on Doritos in North Dakota, but someday soon, bone marrow or some other cell type may well be used to create usable sperm, something that could be a tremendous therapy for men suffering from azoospermia — and so lack sperm of their own. Other future technologies like synthetically created genomes, artificial chromosomes and manufactured cells also may be used as part of reproductive services.

And if any of this ever comes to pass, we are going to have to make conceptual adjustments because such developments will further change an already changing outlook on culture and on what it means to reproduce.

“The biggest development in reproductive biology is the birth-control pill,” Stock says. “Nobody ever talks about it, but look at the consequences: demographics; aging populations; the sinking population of Europe, Japan; immigration. It’s incredible.”

Women may not be so essential, either
Men will likely stick around for a very long time, but Stanford’s Magnus agrees that we will all have to adapt to new technologies, probably by divorcing sperm, egg and genes from the way we think of children. “I think what we really need is to do a better job of telling cultural stories to ourselves about what it means to be a family and have children. What does ‘having children’ mean in a technological age?”

This is a real question for women, too. Eggs have been created in labs, and though we still need your wombs to make a baby, research into “exogenesis” — gestating a “baby in a bottle” — is in its infancy. Roger Gosden, an IVF pioneer, favors the research.

“The arrival of exogenesis would probably herald a host of new opportunities for our species — social as well as biological,” he declares in his book “Designing Babies.”

So ladies, laugh it up while you can because once those artificial eggs and the artificial womb hit the market, you’ll be buying your own dinners at Chez Francoise.

Will science render men unnecessary?