And here’s one that will surely have feminists squirming, and homosexuals jumping for joy. We don’t need women any more to have babies! Well, almost. Motherless babies could be on the horizon after scientists discovered a method of creating an offspring without the need for a female egg. Even skin cells and DNA from two men, or even one man could unite with sperm to create a viable offspring.
An experiment by the University of Bath rewrites 200 years of biology teaching and could pave the way for a baby to be born without a mother. It was always thought that only a female egg could spark the changes in a sperm required to make a baby, because an egg forms from a special kind of cell division in which just half the number of chromosomes are carried over. Sperm cells form in the same way, so that when a sperm and egg meet they form a full genetic quota, with half our DNA coming from our mother and half from our father.
But now scientists have shown embryos could be created from cells which carry all their chromosomes which means that, in theory, any cell in the human body could be fertilized by a sperm. Three generations of mice have already been created with the first set using the new technique, while the rest were conceived in the normal way. All generations were fit and healthy. And now researchers are planning to test out the theory using skin cells.
Dr. Tony Perry, a molecular embryologist and senior author of the study, said, “Some people say start the day with an egg, but what this paper says is that you don’t necessarily have to start development with one. It has been thought that only an egg cell was capable of reprogramming sperm to allow embryonic development to take place,” he continued. “Our work challenges that dogma, held since early embryologists first observed mammalian eggs in around 1827 and observed fertilization 50 years later, that only an egg cell fertilized with a sperm cell can result in a live mammalian birth.” Then he added, “Imagine that you could take the skin cells and make embryos from them. This would have all kinds of utility.
So, how did they do it? For the initial experiments, scientists “tricked” an egg into developing into an embryo using special chemicals, which makes the egg think it has been fertilized. Crucially, the cells in an embryo mirror closely most other cells in the body, such as skin cells.
When scientists injected the embryos with sperm, they grew into healthy mice, which went on to produce their own litters. The fertilized non-egg cell developed into an embryo in the same way as a normal egg cell. Although the researchers began with an egg cell for the experiment, they do not believe it is required to spark the same development. In theory, the technique should work with any cell in the body as long as half the chromosomes are removed first to allow them to fuse with the sperm’s chromosomes.
Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, group leader at The Francis Crick Institute, said: “I’m not surprised that the authors are excited about this. I think it is a very interesting paper, and a technical tour de force. And I am sure it will tell us something important about reprogramming at these early steps of development that are relevant to fertilization.
The technique raises the possibility that gay men, for instance, could have a child whose DNA was half of each of the couple, although a woman would still need to act as a surrogate to carry the baby.
Opps, I guess we need women after all – at least for a while.
Even the self-centered could engage in this business (no pun intended), because it also raises the possibility that a man could even fertilize his own cells to produce offspring containing a mixture of genes inherited from him and his parents.
More realistically, the technique could allow women whose fertility has been wiped out by cancer drugs or radiotherapy to have their own children.
Yes, that does seem to be a bit more reasonable, doesn’t it? But wait a minute. Will the new technology be limited to helping female cancer victims have babies? I think not! There are too many “interesting” opportunities for these scientists. And since they do not have a sense that there is a God in heaven that created man in His own image, they have no barriers to monkeying around with His image (again no pun intended).
While eggs can be frozen before cancer therapy and later fertilized in an IVF clinic, currently nothing can be done once they have been lost. It may also help women to continue having children later in life. Women are born with all their eggs and they degrade with age, which makes conception more difficult in later life. But if it was possible to fertilize a new skin cell, it could improve the chance of having a baby.
And what age would be the cut off? 90? 80? 70?
Conception using sperm and non-egg cells could also aid the preservation of endangered species, since it avoids the need to recover eggs.
Is this another seemingly good outcome? Perhaps, but then what about amalgamating the species? Or creating creatures not presently alive by engineering designer genomes? Will this technology be limited just to preservation of endangered species? Or will we get live dinosaurs and other creatures back?
In the study, 30 mouse pups were born with a success rate of 24 per cent, which is comparable to the method of cloning that was used to make the famous Dolly the Sheep. Scientists transferred DNA to donated eggs to create Dolly.
Dr. Paul Colville-Nash, from the Medical Research Council, which funded the study, said: “This is an exciting piece of research which may help us to understand more about how human life begins and what controls the viability of embryos, mechanisms which may be important in fertility.”
Some scientists seem to be salivating at the idea of mucking around with the human genome and creating everything from chimeras to motherless children. Modifying DNA and the human genome is as old as the antediluvians, who were destroyed for this and more because it defaced the image of God in man. The image of God? What’s that? That is something that humanly intangible in scientific terms, but by changing the human genome, those intangibles are apparently directly affected.
This just goes to show how God is so much bigger than all these scientists who don’t really know very much about DNA. They are just now taking the next baby step in manipulating the genome. They have nothing on the antediluvians.
“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” Luke 17:26.
“But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere.” Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. 1, page 69.
Source References
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Motherless babies possible as scientists create live offspring without need for female egg [1]
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Skin cells might be used instead of eggs to make embryos, scientists say [2]
Please pray for India and for Sijo and his ministry in India. Rising persecution is creating stress on the Hindu nation, especially for Christians. The government enacts repressive laws against Christianity. Persecution is especially difficult in the north where there are killings and torture of Christians, the spread of anti-Christian propaganda. India apparently intends to abolish Christianity in India by 2020.