(Bloomberg) -- In-vitro gametogenesis is a technology that could theoretically turn any kind of human cell into those that form sperm or eggs. If IVG becomes viable—and some scientists say it’s only a decade away—it could pave the way to a future where infertile couples have children with their own DNA. One where same-sex couples could have a child related to both parents. And in the most radical scenario of all, where a person could have a baby all by themselves—no sperm or egg donor necessary.
In the fourth episode of the Bloomberg Originals series Posthuman, Emily Chang investigates this nascent technology and how it could reshape the very future of humanity. “In-vitro gametogenesis,” says Amander Clarke, director of the UCLA Center for Reproductive Science, “is almost like a science fiction technology.”
IVG certainly promises extreme disruption to traditional definitions of parenthood, and goes far beyond the possibilities that in-vitro fertilization, or IVF, now offers. With this, unsurprisingly, will come some extremely difficult questions.“The foundations of ethical debate are getting a little bit shaky,” says Insoo Hyun, director of the Center for Life Sciences at the Museum of Science in Boston. “The big questions today around IVG have to do with redefining categories—like who is a parent? What does it mean to be a biological parent? What does it mean to be infertile?”
“These are basic questions that we thought were pretty much settled in the past,” Hyun says. “But IVG is disrupting these.”IVG has so far only been achieved in mice, but scientists aspire to make human sperm and eggs out of cells as basic as those that form skin and blood. “The uncertainty is whether in-vitro gametogenesis will be able to be used for reproductive purposes,” says Clarke. “And that’s because there’s a long regulatory road that cell-based therapies need to take before they can make their way into the clinic.”The road to IVG in humans is nevertheless advancing, and it’s doing so in concert with other reproductive technologies, such as artificial wombs that could replicate the maternal environment. If both technologies someday become workable, that would move medical science closer to an entirely new threshold: Growing a baby entirely outside the human body.
“Technology proceeds at the same time as an opportunity, and as a danger,” says Hyun. “You cannot separate the two.”
To see more episodes of Posthuman, click here.To see more videos on Bloomberg Originals, click here.
(Corrects title of Insoo Hyun in fourth paragraph of story published Dec. 3.)
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