Scientists have been promising a breakthrough in fertility tech and the United Kingdom’s fertility watchdog group gathered last week to make sure it was prepared. When it comes, in-vitro gametes (IVG) will change the way people have babies. IVG could open the door to same-sex couples having biological children, older couples having kids, and complex kids formed from upwards of 4 different genetic donors.
As first reported by The Guardian, the members of Britain’s Human Fertility and Embryology Authority board (HFEA) met on January 22nd to discuss the overhaul of fertility laws in the U.K. The HFEA is an independent body that regulates fertility clinics in the U.K. through licensing, monitoring, and inspection.
A big portion of its recent meeting was given over to talk about IVG, a technology that scientists and researchers have long said is on the horizon. IVG would let someone create an egg or sperm cell from any cell of the human body. That means a bit of skin could become a sperm that fertilizes an egg with someone’s genetic material.
It’s the “Holy Grail” of fertility treatment and would mean that people who can’t otherwise donate genetic material for a child could do so. That would open up fertility treatments to older couples, but also create a world where same-sex couples could mix their genes.
“The possibility of using IVGs in to enable ethically and socially complex reproduction such as ‘multiplex parenting’ (IVGs created from more than two parents),” the HFEA presentation said. “This could result in offspring genetically related to four parents, who would technically be the child’s genetic grandparents.”
It would also be possible for someone to “solo parent,” or make a child by creating both the egg and the sperm from the same donor. Though, as the HFEA noted, the probability of genetic maladies in such a case is high, and doing so probably isn’t ethical.
https://youtu.be/oK67W_DI2i0
Rebbeca Taylor, HFEA’s Scientific Policy Manager, noted that scientists have done IVG in mice but not in humans or primates. Yet. “There’s no agreement among scientists as to how far off these actually are,” she said during the presentation. In 2021, U.S. scientists promised they could make it happen by 2023. They missed the deadline.
Scientists have, however, been able to make children from two male mice using IVG. Researchers have said that early indications of mice pups created from IVG have all been healthy and the early indications are that there’s no reason this shouldn’t also work just fine for primates and humans.
The introduction of IVG would change the way we think about conception, genetics, and children. Humans bred one way for thousands of years and in-vitro fertilization is only about 50 years old.
HFEA’s conference was a little dry, but it was interesting. A new technology is on the horizon, one that could shake the foundations of what it means to have children across the planet. They’re trying to get a grip on it and decide what the role of government should be in the process.
That alone makes it worth listening to.
Read the full article here
