In Breakthrough for Future of Gay Parenting, Scientists Create Mice With Cells from 2 Male Mice

In an incredible Scientific breakthrough, Scientists have created new mice by combining the cells of two male mice. They published their work/findings on Wednesday in the prestigious journal Nature.

To make the baby mice, the researchers did a three-step process:

• Step 1 — they take skin cells from the tails of male mice and transform them into “induced pluripotent stem cells,” which can be developed into many different types of cells or tissues.

• Step 2 — they convert the male mouse stem cells into female cells and produced functional egg cells, with a process that involves growing them and treating them with a chemical.

• Step 3 — they fertilize those eggs and implant the embryos into female mice to then be born.

Their studies yielded a success rate of about 1% of the embryos. Roughly 7 out of 630 grew into live baby mice. Also, the new mice great into adults that could successfully bear offsprings, as well.

Diana Laird, a stem cell and reproductive expert at the University of California San Francisco, who was not involved in the research, said, “It’s an important step in both stem cell and reproductive biology.” In a commentary published alongside the Nature study, Laird and colleague Jonathan Bayerl said the scientific breakthrough “opens up new avenues in reproductive biology and fertility research” for both animals and people.

 

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Not only could we one day create offspring from a single male, but “it might even provide a template for enabling more people” - such as male same-sex couples - “to have biological offspring while circumventing the ethical and legal issues of donor eggs,” they wrote.

There is still so much more work and funding needed to continue the research, but this is decidedly an incredible step in the evolution of how we can bring life into the world for those people looking to do so.

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