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Biotech Science

UK Scientists to Create Embryo From Two Women 282

Posted by Zonk from the we're-superfluous dept.
An anonymous reader wrote to mention a BBC story about a UK research group that has been given permission to create a human embryo with genetic material from two women. From the article: "The groundbreaking work aims to prevent mothers from passing certain genetic diseases on to their unborn babies. The researchers are focusing on a group of conditions called mitochondrial myopathy, which include types of muscular dystrophy. These cause muscle weakness and wasting, making it difficult to move normally - some may need to use a wheelchair. At present no treatment for these exists, although things can be done to help with the symptoms. "
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UK Scientists to Create Embryo From Two Women More

UK Scientists to Create Embryo From Two Women

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  • Cool! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:19PM (#13527819)
    I am looking forward to the video. I hope it will be better than cam!

    • Troll? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Oh come on. Have a sense of humor.

  • Beginning of a B-Movie? (Score:5, Funny)

    by gbulmash ( 688770 ) * <semi_famousNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:19PM (#13527822) Homepage Journal
    Seems to me to be the beginning of one of those sci-fi scenarios where women no longer need men to reproduce. Two women want a baby, they just have this procedure done, and voila. No need for sperm to make the baby and there's a 100% guarantee the baby is a girl.

    Gradually, men begin to disappear as old ones die and no new ones are born to replace them, until finally Earth is entirely populated by women.

    Then some major event happens (like a giant meteor strike) that knocks technology back into the stone age. Without men and without labs, no babies can be created. The race is dying out.

    And then, deep in some hidden location, a small cache of men is found in a research facility that was trying to find a way to keep the male half of our species alive. They are the last men on earth, and a planet full of women wants their stud services!

    Commando teams of women try to raid the facility so that the men can be captured, mechanically "milked" for their semen, and it can be distributed. But the facility was created with superior defenses. The men inside are safe. Gradually the women realize that the men are in charge of their own bodies.

    Each day ovulating women line up outside the facility, naked save for a pair of high heels, and bearing gifts of food and assorted lagers. The men choose the ones they find most attractive, then those must face off in an exotic dancing competition to determine who may enter and be serviced.

    I think I've just written the script to a late-night cable movie.

    - Greg

    • Re:Beginning of a B-Movie? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:21PM (#13527836) Homepage
      This is not anything like "eliminating men". They're not even recombining two women's DNA - they're using using the mitochondrial DNA from one and the combined nuclear DNA from a male and female pair.

      • Re:Beginning of a B-Movie? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:30PM (#13527895)
        Quit with the science, nerd-man. I want to see the movie!

      • This is not anything like "eliminating men". They're not even recombining two women's DNA - they're using using the mitochondrial DNA from one and the combined nuclear DNA from a male and female pair.

        Hm. Now I wish I had RTFA before posting below. What I wonder is how you RTFAed between the time there were zero posts and when you posted. Either you are insanely fast, you are a subscriber, you are a PERL script, or you are from the future.

      • Whatever it is, we want pictures.

      • Seriously (Score:2, Informative)

        by FST777 ( 913657 )
        Oh yes, but where will it stop? What are the etical boundaries in the next 20 years?
        This technology -=might=- harm the human race indeed. I'm not kidding! Now they are eliminating genetic diseases, next they are propagating "good" genes (like brain-development and "kindness"), next they are building the supreme human, and before we know it, by forgetting all about the fact that the human genome is far more complex then any human could begin to understand, we have created a new race of homo sapiens that is
        • Please go take a class on logic and learn about the slippery slope fallacy.

          • So, the slippery slope is a fallacy? Well let's see what the a NAZI propagandist had to say:

            Nazi Herman Goering on Military Recruting [rcnv.org]
            "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who det

      • Peter Gibbons: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
        Lawrence: I'll tell you what I'd do, man, two chicks at the same time, man.
        Peter Gibbons: That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
        Lawrence: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I had a million dollars I could hook that up, cause chicks dig a dude with money.
        Peter Gibbons: Well, not all chicks.
        Lawrence: Well the kind of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do.
        Peter Gibbons
    • I'm digging this scenario.
    • I realise this is a joke, but it should be noted that the first egg is fertilised.
    • Actually, I think you just squished together the last 4 B-movies you saw.
    • That's hillarious. That'll teach those lesbian lifetime watching cows.

    • Re:Beginning of a B-Movie? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:28PM (#13527883) Homepage Journal
      If you like the idea you've pitched then don't miss A Boy and His Dog [imdb.com].

    • Re:Beginning of a B-Movie? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think sperm was used to fertilize both eggs.

      That aside, what's wrong with sex not being used for reproduction? Many problems might be avoided if everyone were to be sterilized young and then must make a sane choice (when sober and old enough) in order to become pregnant via these techniques, which still require development in a womb.

      Plus, tons of free lovin' without consequences. That's what I'm talking about.

    • Re:Beginning of a B-Movie? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AEton ( 654737 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:50PM (#13528016)
      There was an episode of Sliders with a slightly different setup but the same conclusion. ("Love Gods"). It was a whole lot like another episode where LOL WOMEN R THE LEADERZ ("The Weaker Sex").
    • I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
    • That sounds vaguely like a porno I saw once. Interesting.

    • Hah! You may jest... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by djkitsch ( 576853 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @05:16PM (#13528155)
      ...but this was almost exactly the plotline of an episode of Sliders...I kid you not!
    • Psssssst.....hey buddy, women read slashdot!
    • I believe this [infinityplus.co.uk] is the book you're talking about.
    • No, you've just written the screenplay to one of the Sci-Fi Channel's "Sci-Fi Originals". Arguably some of the worst films ever made but a couple of them were actually entertaining. By all means, send it in: who knows, they might give you a few bucks for it.
    • Ah yes, every man's fantasy... I've seen this plot several times and always wondered...

      First there is the question of how many men are there?

      I always loved the stories where it's only a single man. Talk about something being blue; not from under use, but from over use. Lets not even think of the genetic problems.

      So you start with a small cache of men. You still have the problem of too many woman. So you limit who can breed. How?

      Each day ovulating women line up outside the facility, naked save for a p
      • However, almost everyone wants to continue their genetic line. It's how we gain immortality.

        A really strange concept of immortality if you ask me...
    • Like "Seksmisja" [imdb.com] (Eng. The sex-mission)? Incidentally it's one of the funniest commedies I've seen.

      Basically, two males are hibernated and get thawed after World War III which actually turned out to be the escalated male-female confrontation. The females won and invented a way of reproducing without any male involvement.

      Then those two blokes get defrosted and wake up in a world 100% ruled and controlled by women... Just watch it if you can get hold of it.

    • I think you just infringed on the copyright on several existing late-night cable movies!

    • Re:Beginning of a B-Movie? (Score:4, Funny)

      by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @07:01PM (#13528707) Homepage
      Each day ovulating women line up outside the facility, naked save for a pair of high heels, and bearing gifts of food and assorted lagers.

      Ah, reminds me of college. ;)

    • Aside from the Sliders episode mentioning this, there was actually a movie somewhat similar to this...

      http://imdb.com/title/tt0193283/ [imdb.com]
    • Lois McMaster Bujold wrote a book about a planet with no women, called "Ethan of Athos". The protagonist is sent on a mission to procure more ovaries for the breeding labs where the old ovarian cultures are showing their age. You might find the descriptions of their culture curious, if you are not as opposed to homosexuality as I am.
    • This whole article reminded me of the classic polish cult movie, Sexmisia. [imdb.com]

      It's not quite the same script as you described, but very similar in some aspects.
    • Somewhere, a porn "director's" eyes have just lit up like a kid's at Christmas...

      That being said, I'm sure this has already been the "plot" of at least half-a-dozen porn movies. Anyone care to come up with the titles?

    • Gradually, men begin to disappear as old ones die and no new ones are born to replace them, until finally Earth is entirely populated by women.

      Actually this could help save humans because as it is now the humans male is headed for extinction anyway... Generally what makes a human a male is the X chromosome. Most, not all (more explained later), humans have two sex chromosomes [rcn.com], either an X and a Y chromosome or two X chromosomes with females having two Xs. The SRY gene [aappublications.org] on the Y chromosome acts like a

  • Muscular dystrophy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lordsilence ( 682367 ) * on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:21PM (#13527833) Homepage
    Having had my aunt die due to her muscle dystrophy (heart is also a muscle, remember?) I'm for one glad that research is done in the subject.

    I wonder how long time it'll take until we can get rid of the genetic defects which we otherwise risk pass on.

  • So it's egg from one, DNA from another? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:22PM (#13527838) Homepage Journal
    If they are trying to prevent mitocondrial diseases from being passed on, I take it they are using the egg cell from one mother with the neclious removed, and implanting DNA from another in there? That way, they'll have the mitocondria from one, but the DNA from another. A man's DNA will need to be added to the egg in order to reproduce. So really it's Two woman and one man. Or are they actualy somehow doing meosis with two eggs?
  • Sign me up for one!

  • Human reproduction without men (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MisterSquid ( 231834 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:26PM (#13527865)

    Years ago (1995), I gave a presentation as a graduate student about the increasing representation of men as sex objects much in the same way that women had long been characterized: anxious, vapid, to-be-looked-at as opposed to about-to-do-something, etc.

    In the Q & A, someone asked about gender or some such other, and I remember responding that what I really found fascinating was that though much popular thinking surrounded the creation of artificial wombs, women would soon be able to reproduce without the aid of men. The response I received was tepid to say the least. People, especially straight women, don't want to hear about a society without men.

    Of course, cloning was always a possibility but for complex mammals cloning has less that desirable results (for now). This development means that a woman-only state, municipality, sect, etc. is possible and could conceivably reproduce itself in perpetuity.

    Just a few thoughts.

    • though much popular thinking surrounded the creation of artificial wombs, women would soon be able to reproduce without the aid of men.

      The artificial wombs are the easy part; the genetic material from the male in mammals is activated in a way that genetic material for the female is not, and a zygote with genetic material from just females will not develop.
      • Cloning can be done, and is still technically reproduction. We'll just be wiped out by changing environmental pressures when we lose our ability to adapt. But if you're going to wipe out half of humanity, you might as well hit both halves.
    • See, it isn't that we straight ladies don't want our boy toys taken away. It's that we prefer to keep our humanity intact.

      What you're talking about - establishing an entire society with only one gender - can only be done through atrocity. Think about it for a second. Even if two women can reproduce without a man, we still have half the population male, and nothing is stopping us from reproducing naturally. We would have to kill the already living men, or forcibly take away their right to reproduce.

      • You really think women are willing to commit such atrocities ...? We are not savages.

        Yes. Sure, women aren't barbaric, but deep down inside, underneath that veneer of sensetivity and caring and kindness and feelings, there is a detestable predilection for hurting men.

        --A very bitter member of the male gender.

    • This would be true if the experiment hadn't required the two ova to be fertilized first. You learn a lot of things by, you know, reading the article/supporting documentation.
    • You do realise that from that one could just as easily conceive the idea of a world without women?

      No pun intended.

  • Topic = False Impression (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dreoth ( 544253 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:27PM (#13527871)
    This is basically a new surrogate mother approach. Nothing more. The article still mentions the need for sperm. "The result would be an embryo with pronuclei DNA from the parental egg and sperm but mitochondria - and mitochondrial DNA - from the donor egg."

  • Why only two women? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by drgonzo59 ( 747139 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:30PM (#13527897)
    If they can take from two, take it from 10 and splice in the best genes and 'there you go' - superbaby. In the day and age, where genes come from doesn't really matter as long as they are good genes.

    Up until a while ago people percieved this magic or spiritual connection between child and parents. Today it is all just genes. Manipulate then anyway you can and create custom children, with selected features.

    • That's not quite what's going on. It's a mitochondrial transplant, basically, nothing to do with nuclear DNA at all. The nucleus was produced the normal way (egg fertilized by sperm). the kind of thing you describe is, well, way the hell in the future if it will ever be done at all.

    • Because while you may end up with a superbaby, all the really crappy genes left over will make Danny DeVito [imdb.com].

      Hasn't Hollywood taught you anything!

  • This isn't about two women having a baby. It's about a male and female couple's embryo being altered with material from another woman. In other words, two women and a man = embryo.

  • hrmmmmm (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    they're not combining the DNA from 2 women to create 1 child. With a normal child, etc. all the mitochondria come from the mother. Father's sperm doesn't have any play in this. So its 100% inheritance from the mother.

    this disease is passed on within the mitochondria. What they are trying todo, it seems, is replace the defective mitochondria of the mother with the mitochondria from a healthy donor. Thus preventing the transmission of this disease.

  • Now that men are no longer needed for breeding, the rest of them can join the Slashdot group of men who never get laid.

    I kid, I kid. I mean one of us must have gotten laid right?

  • If you have genetic defects that will be passed on to your offspring, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper and less risky to just adopt, rather than trying to repair the damage? This also sounds like it's coming quite close to human cloning, an issue for which society hasn't yet adequately prepared itself, IMO.

  • Excess material ? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Animaether ( 411575 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @05:14PM (#13528145) Journal
    "UK Scientists to Create Embryo From Two Women"

    There's no way they can fit two women into the tiny package of an embryo - where does the excess material go?

    Joking aside...

    1. They're not making an embryo - they're making a zygote. Which, with any luck, turns into an embryo, foetus, baby, person.

    2. This still involves a man. They're taking one bit of genetic information from one woman - skipping the section where genes are considered out of whack. Then they take -that- section from another woman - where they're considered to be in order. Then they splice those two together and re-insert it into the egg cell. Next up, they get funky with the guy's sperm and do a regular ol' petri-dish fertilization.
    • Actually not even that complicated. Mitochondria have their own packaging and reproductive cycle, they're basically symbiotic organisms that live in cell plasma. So all this experiment is doing is swapping the mitochondria in a sick and healthy embryo and seeing if it works. No splicing of DNA necessary at all.

  • Just goes to show... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Colitis ( 8283 ) <jj DOT walker AT outlook DOT co DOT nz> on Saturday September 10, 2005 @05:20PM (#13528174)
    ...even God's DRM is hackable.

    And they didn't even need DVD Jon's help!

    What hope do Apple/Microsoft/etc have?
  • Would it not be simpler for those with genetic disorders to not have childern?
  • Stanislaw Lem [www.lem.pl] predicted this in his short story "Professor A. Donda" (the first real information scientist [dreaming.org]).

    RMN
    ~~~
  • currently possible, for an egg to be fertilized, only using genetic material from women?
  • Please, scientists, develop a way for this to happen without the test tube.

    Sure we can have 2F + 1M sex now, but I think this will make it easier to justify to the wife.

  • A simpler answer (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fluffy99 ( 870997 )

    Isn't it simpler to tell these people carrying fatal genetic flaws to not have biological children? Rather than figure out how to pass on defective genes and have a kid living a screwed up life, go adopt a healthy child!

    It's ludicrous that couples frequently put their desire to have a child ahead of common sense when their child stands a significant chance of being abnormal or handicapped. I've heard of people who keep trying to have kids, knowing that there is a %50 chance of passing on serious genet

  • Who's dumber? A stupid blonde chick great at reproduction, or a smart ass virgin scientist that finds a way to make men obsolete?

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