A new crop of biotech startups are working to revolutionise human reproduction. This article from The New Yorker takes at look at their ambitions, their progress and what human fertility may look like in the coming decades if they’re successful.
You’ve likely heard of IVF. Well in 2016, two Japanese researchers proved that IVG was possible in mammals. Essentially, they took non-reproductive cells from a mouse’s tail and reprogrammed them into reproductive egg cells which, once fertilised, were able to give birth to baby mice. According to Stanford Professor Henry Greely, “If ripe human eggs could be derived from a person’s skin cells, it would avoid most of the cost, almost all of the discomfort, and all of the risk of IVF.” That is the promise of this relatively new area of research.
That isn’t the only thing Greely has predicted. In 2016, he suggested that “in the next twenty to forty years sex will no longer be the method by which most people make babies.” This article is a fascinating (and at times scary and dystopian) look at the flock of new companies working to prove Greely right.
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