this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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Quest to create viable human sex cells in lab progressing rapidly, with huge implications for reproduction

Scientists are just a few years from creating viable human sex cells in the lab, according to an internationally renowned pioneer of the field, who says the advance could open up biology-defying possibilities for reproduction.

Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Katsuhiko Hayashi, a developmental geneticist at the University of Osaka, said rapid progress is being made towards being able to transform adult skin or blood cells into eggs and sperm, a feat of genetic conjury known as in-vitro gametogenesis (IVG).

His own lab is about seven years away from the milestone, he predicts. Other frontrunners include a team at the University of Kyoto and a California-based startup, Conception Biosciences, whose Silicon Valley backers include the OpenAI founder, Sam Altman and whose CEO told the Guardian that growing eggs in the lab “might be the best tool we have to reverse population decline” and could pave the way for human gene editing.

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[–] SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 13 points 13 hours ago (5 children)

Production of humans without ties to historical family lines, would they have a number for a surname?

[–] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 7 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

Welcome to the brave new world order

And, in effect, eighty-three almost noseless black brachycephalic Deltas were cold-pressing. The fifty-six four-spindle chucking and turning machines were being manipulated by fifty-six aquiline and ginger Gammas. One hundred and seven heat-conditioned Epsilon Senegalese were working in the foundry. Thirty-three Delta females, long-headed, sandy, with narrow pelvises, and all within 20 millimetres of 1 metre 69 centimetres tall, were cutting screws. In the assembling room, the dynamos were being put together by two sets of Gamma-Plus dwarfs. The two low work-tables faced one another; between them crawled the conveyor with its load of separate parts; forty-seven blonde heads were confronted by forty-seven brown ones. Forty-seven snubs by forty-seven hooks; forty-seven receding by forty-seven prognathous chins. The completed mechanisms were inspected by eighteen identical curly auburn girls in Gamma green, packed in crates by thirty-four short-legged, left-handed male Delta-Minuses, and loaded into waiting trucks and lorries by sixty-three blue-eyed, flaxen and freckled Epsilon Semi-Morons.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokanovsky%27s_Process_(Brave_New_World)

[–] SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 5 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Funnily enough I think I read that novel like twenty years ago

[–] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I still say it is/was much more prescient than 1984.

[–] Policeshootout@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour ago

I just read this for the first time about a month ago and it was my first thought reading the article.

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