Science & Technology

Human babies can be created using skin cells

By T.K. Randall
September 13, 2016

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) The groundbreaking discovery was made during an experiment at the University of Bath which involved creating three generations of mice using sperm and skin cells from adult males.

Previously it was believed that a baby could only be made by combining sperm with a female egg, but now it appears as though any cell in the human body can be fertilized by a sperm."It has been thought that only an egg cell was capable of reprogramming sperm to allow embryonic development to take place," said molecular embryologist Dr Tony Perry.

"Our work challenges that dogma, held since early embryologists first observed mammalian eggs in around 1827 and observed fertilisation 50 years later, that only an egg cell fertilised with a sperm cell can result in a live mammalian birth."

"We're talking about different ways of making embryos. Imagine that you could take skin cells and make embryos from them. This would have all kinds of utility."

Source: BBC News

Tags: Baby, Reproduction, DNA