Babies can be created sans women's egg

Although it is still considered speculative and fanciful, making babies without the process of uniting the sperm with the egg can actually happen in the near future.

The findings in Nature Communications have unveiled the possibility of eliminating women in the equation of conceiving offspring s the normal or traditional way.

Scientists at the University of Bath have begun using unfertilized eggs during experiments. The idea is to use chemicals into tricking the egg to produce a pseudo-embryo.

It is interesting to know that fake embryos have a lot of common characteristics with ordinary cells especially in the way these particles divide and control their DNA.

Although the odds of a successful pregnancy during mouse experiments is one in four, the case can be a promising tool to fully understand the possibilities of achieving fertilization under different conditions.

According to Dr. Tony Perry, a molecular embryologist and one of the researchers, it is the first time that anyone has been able to show that anything other than an egg can combine with a sperm to produce an offspring.

Findings have shown that not only were the baby mice healthy. They also have a normal life expectancy and are able to produce healthy pups of their own.

For decades, the fusion of the egg and the sperm continues to be a mystery. What has been observed so far is the process involved leading to fertilization.

For instance, the sperm's DNA has been altered by the egg which made the male particle transform into an embryo. The change that has taken place remains unclear. Within this context, however, comes the prospect of two men having a child with one donating the sperm while the other, an ordinary cell. It is also possible that a man will have a child using his own cells and his sperm.

Although the researchers have started their experiments with an egg cell, they don't believe that it is required for the development to commence.

Theoretically, the method will work with any other cell as long as half of the chromosomes are removed prior to fusing with the sperm.

Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, a group leader at The Francis Crick Institute, the experiment can be significant to the reprogramming phase during the early steps of fertilization development. In a press conference in London, Dr. Perry has pointed out that the practical applications of this as the technology stands at the moment are not very broad.

During the study, although the 30 mouse pups have been born with a success rate of only 24 percent, it is far promising to the rate achieved by Dolly the sheep during the cloning process which has been pegged at 1-2 percent.