Creating Eggs From Skin Cells

Some day it may be possible to produce human babies from skin cells, according to an editorial in Science Translational Medicine.  It's all due to a new technique called in vitro gametogenesis (IVG).

IVG refers to the technique for producing eggs or sperm (gametogenesis) outside the body (in vitro). The technique only became possible because, a decade or so ago, scientists learned how to produce undifferentiated stem cells known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSPs) from mature somatic cells.  Since that time iPSCs have been used to create various kinds of specialized somatic cells, including neurons to heart muscle cells.  And just recently, iPSCs derived from mouse tail cells were used to create fully functional gametes (eggs).  When fertilized with sperm, these eggs created by IVG were able to develop into healthy baby mice.  Sperm have not yet been fully developed from iPSCs, but surely they will be.

The ability to produce eggs and/or sperm from somatic cells raises all kinds of possibilities for how the procedure might be used (or misused, depending on your perspective).  If an egg could be grown from a male's skin cell and then fertilized by IVF with sperm from a male partner, gay couples could have babies that were genetically related to both of the males.  Of course a female surrogate mother would be necessary to carry the embryo to term, but surrogate mothers are not uncommon these days. Taking it one step further, if both eggs and sperm could be created from a male's skin cells, the male could (again, with the help of a surrogate) have a child that was entirely genetically his. These are scenarios that may need to be dealt with in your lifetime.  (Note that since females have no Y chromosome, IVG could only produce eggs from a female; never sperm.)

On the positive side, the ability to produce eggs from skin cells could mean that overcoming infertility would become easier and cheaper.  Right now, women undergoing an IVF procedure must undergo a complicated cycle of ovary stimulation and egg retrieval; with IVG, that would be unnecessary.  Furthermore, IVG could be used to produce an almost infinite supply of eggs, whereas only a few eggs are produced with each IVF cycle.

How do you think IVG should be used?