Lab-Made Eggs Produce Healthy Mice

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 5, 2012 @02:32AM from the built-to-order dept.

ananyo writes "Japanese researchers have coaxed mouse stem cells into becoming viable eggs that produce healthy offspring. Last year, the same team successfully used mouse stem cells to make functional sperm (other groups have produced sperm cells in vitro). The researchers used a cocktail of growth factors to transform stem cells into egg precursors. When they added these egg precursor cells to embryonic ovary tissue that did not contain sex cells, the mixture spontaneously formed ovary-like structures, which they then grafted onto natural ovaries in female mice. After four weeks, the stem-cell-derived cells had matured into oocytes. The team removed the oocytes from the ovaries, fertilized them and transplanted the embryos into foster mothers. The offspring that were produced grew up to be fertile themselves."

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And we move forward by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-05 02:40 · Score: 5, Interesting

Robotic spaceships that produce humans at their destination here we come!
1. Re:And we move forward by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-05 02:47 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  And the caretaker robots that can create healthy human minds.
  We've already invented TV.
Are they as nutritious as organic mice??? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-05 02:41 · Score: 5, Funny

inquiring Pythons want to know.
Mice hatched from eggs by wiwa · 2012-10-05 04:49 · Score: 5, Funny

My first thought on reading the headline was that they made mice that hatched from eggs. The actual discovery is much less impressive.