Skin Cells To Babies? Science Edges Toward Ending Infertility

By TOSI ORE

THE dream of ending infertility took a remarkable leap forward this week. For the first time, scientists have transformed ordinary human skin cells into eggs, fertilised them with sperm, and watched them develop into embryos in the lab. Though far from ready for clinical use, this breakthrough could redefine the boundaries of reproduction — and, by extension, the meaning of family.

Infertility affects one in six people worldwide, often leaving couples and individuals devastated by limited options. Now, with a technology called in-vitro gametogenesis (IVG), researchers are sketching a future in which biology is no longer destiny. Women without viable eggs — whether due to age, illness, or genetics — could potentially create new eggs from their own cells. Same-sex couples could have children genetically related to both partners. For millions, the unimaginable suddenly seems possible.

But possibility is not reality — not yet. The US-led team, publishing in Nature Communications, achieved the feat using a complex technique once employed to clone Dolly the sheep. They extracted the nucleus from human skin cells, inserted it into a donor egg stripped of its own nucleus, and forced it to undergo a special kind of chromosome reduction they call “mitomeiosis.” This clever mimicry of natural cell division allowed the skin cells to behave like eggs.

The result? 82 lab-grown eggs. When fertilised through IVF, some embryos survived for six days — the point at which they reached the blastocyst stage, theoretically ready for uterine transfer. Success rates were low: fewer than 9 percent made it this far, and many showed abnormalities. Yet, as scientists point out, even in natural conception, only about a third of embryos reach this same stage.

Still, the hurdles remain immense. The biggest challenge is producing genetically normal eggs with the correct number of chromosomes. Without this, the promise of IVG remains confined to the lab.

Experts outside the study are calling it a watershed moment. “For the first time, scientists have shown that DNA from ordinary body cells can be placed into an egg, activated, and made to halve its chromosomes,” said Ying Cheong, a reproductive medicine researcher at the University of Southampton. “This could transform how we understand infertility and miscarriage.”

The ethical and social questions are as profound as the science. If IVG succeeds, who gets access? How will societies regulate the creation of eggs — and potentially sperm — from skin cells? What does it mean for adoption, surrogacy, or the very notion of genetic parenthood?

Paula Amato, a co-author of the study, is both hopeful and cautious: “We are at least a decade away. But the technology could one day allow women without eggs, or same-sex couples, to have children genetically related to them.”

In the meantime, scientists continue to refine techniques — some working through stem cell reprogramming, others perfecting nuclear transfer. The race is not just about science; it is about redefining human possibility.

For those who struggle with infertility, this development offers a glimmer of something rare: hope. Not hope for tomorrow, but hope for a future in which no one is permanently excluded from the chance to create life.

In the lab, skin cells have already taken their first fragile steps toward becoming eggs. The world now watches as science inches closer to rewriting the story of reproduction itself.