'Shocking' research opens door to conception without egg

Research by a UK team has challenged the age-old belief that life can only be created by fusing a sperm with an egg, a breakthrough that could lead to all-male parents having babies in the future.

The team at the University of Bath who are behind the research say that the idea of developing a technique to allow gay men to father children together is still "entirely speculative and fanciful" but that the breakthrough in its labs is very real.

Lead researcher Dr Tony Perry said: "Our work challenges the dogma, held since early embryologists first observed mammalian eggs around 1827 … that only an egg cell fertilised with a sperm cell can result in live mammalian birth."

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The researchers produced healthy mice offspring by injecting sperm into 'parthenogenote' mouse embryos, a type of embryo created from eggs tricked into developing as if they have been fertilised.

Left untouched, parthenogenote embryos usually die within a few days. But in the new study, 20 mouse pups were produced, at a success rate of 24 per cent.

While the pups were created with a process that uses an egg, the team say they believe the technique will work without one, because the parthenogenotes are similar to other non-egg cells – skin cells, for example.

Perry said: "What we're saying is that these embryos are mitotic cells – mitotic cells are the type of cell that almost every dividing cell in your body is.

"And therefore potentially one day we might be able to extend what we've shown in these mitotic cells to other mitotic cells. Will we be able to do that? I don't know.

"But I think, if it is ever possible, one day in the distant future people will look back and say this is where it started."

The research opens up the possibility that women made infertile by cancer drugs or radiotherapy could have their own children, even if they do not have frozen eggs to work with, says Sky News.

The "stunning … shocking" experiment "defies nature", says The Independent, and could also allow a man to father a child effectively with himself – all the DNA would come from his parents, via his own cells.