Infertility could be ended with emerging technologies, including CRISPR

baby

Through an emerging technology called in vitro gametogenesis (or IVG), scientists are learning how to convert adult human cells—taken perhaps from the inside of a cheek or from a piece of skin on the arm—into artificial gametes, lab-made eggs and sperm, that could be combined to create an embryo and then be implanted in a womb. For the infertile or people having trouble conceiving, it would be a huge breakthrough.

[M]odern gene-editing technologies such as Crispr-Cas9 would make it relatively easy to repair, add, or remove genes during the IVG process, eliminating diseases or conferring advantages that would ripple through a child’s genome. This all may sound like science fiction, but to those following the research, the combination of IVG and gene editing appears highly likely, if not inevitable.

Used together, we can imagine would-be parents who have genetic diseases, or are infertile, or want to confer various genetic advantages on their children going to a clinic and swabbing their cheeks or losing a little piece of skin.

[H]ow can we know for sure that children born using IVG and gene editing won’t get sick later in life, or that their descendants won’t lack an important adaptation?

“Fear of the unknown and unquantifiable risks shouldn’t absolutely prohibit us from making interventions that could have great benefits,” [says Harvard Medical School dean George Daly.]

Read full, original post: Science is getting us closer to the end of infertility

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