The development of scientific techniques of combining cells, chromosomes, and other genetic modifications continues to accelerate and an increasing rate, despite moral concerns to the contrary. Now, scientist have been able to turn skin cells into embryos post-fertilization with sperm.
“Researchers have created human embryos by taking nuclei from ordinary skin cells, placing them into donated eggs, and fertilizing them with sperm. The work is a laboratory demonstration that shows what might eventually be possible for people who cannot produce viable eggs, though substantial scientific hurdles remain.
“The team at Oregon Health & Science University used a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, where a skin cell’s nucleus is placed into a donated egg that has had its own genetic material removed. After fertilization with sperm, these reconstructed cells produced embryos that developed for several days.”
This is, however very experimental and there is still much to understand, though some interesting chromosome sorting has been seen:
“When eggs form naturally, matching chromosomes from your mother and father pair up, line up together, and separate in an organized way. One goes to the egg, one gets discarded. It’s precise and orderly. In these reconstructed cells, chromosomes just scattered randomly. Some cells kept both copies of certain chromosomes while completely losing others.
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“One chromosome behaved oddly. Chromosome 8 consistently sent the mother’s copy to one location and the father’s copy to another, rather than choosing randomly. Why this happened remains a mystery.
“…
“Single-cell analysis revealed varied chromosome compositions. Some embryos were uniform, with all cells containing the same mix of sperm and skin cell chromosomes. Others were mosaic, with different cells carrying different chromosome combinations. Nearly all embryos contained the complete set of 23 sperm chromosomes”.
The combination of modified designer chromosomes and select sorting thereof without even needing an egg donor opens up the possibility of creating genetically engineered catgirls suitable for domestic adoption via mass production in artificial wombs!
A little mood music:
