Babies from Two Bio-Dads?

A possibly significant piece of science was published in Cell online on Christmas Eve, but no one much noticed for a couple of months. It carried this unprepossessing title:

SOX17 Is a Critical Specifier of Human Primordial Germ Cell Fate

The Wellcome Trust, which supported the project, didn't even put out a press release, but the University of Cambridge did, explaining it concisely:

Scientists at the University of Cambridge working with the Weizmann Institute have created primordial germ cells — cells that will go on to become egg and sperm — using human embryonic stem cells. Although this had already been done using rodent stem cells, the study, published today in the journal Cell, is the first time this has been achieved efficiently using human stem cells.

Two months later, Lois Rogers of the London Sunday Times caught on that these were artificial gametes, interviewed some of the scientists and published a piece titled

Cell breakthrough to bring two-dad babies

A senior co-author, Jacob Hanna of the Israeli Weizmann Institute, went so far as to suggest that the technique might lead to a baby "in just two years." (Other experts are not convinced; the phrase "total baloney" has been used.) And from there, the story hit Newsweek and a flurry of headlines.

Artificial gametes have been a source of discussion for so long that a recent survey in Human Reproduction turned up 2424 articles. Indeed, the UK HFEA has had a backgrounder on the subject for at least five years; the use of "in-vitro derived gametes" for reproduction is prohibited in the UK, and the creation of embryos for research would require a license.

The recent paper is an incremental step. The research is real, and the science is interesting, particularly (as the journal article title suggests) in the discovered difference between mouse and human development. But it would be a very long way from this development to any kind of practical use.

There might eventually be some medical value derived from this work, but don't hold your breath. Moreover, as Paul Knoepfler notes, "there’s a 'dual use issue' here. This same kind of technology, if applied by some rogue scientists, could be used to clone human beings as well." Knoepfler goes on to remind us that the United States has no formal policy prohibiting human reproductive cloning, and that it's "probably well past time" for one to be put in place.

The techniques could also facilitate human germline genetic modification, also not regulated by law in the US. Both human reproductive cloning and germline modification are prohibited in dozens of other countries.

As long ago as 2008, Marcy Darnovsky wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle, when a rodent experiment made similar headlines:

Why are speculative and risky technologies being held out to lesbians and gay men as tantalizing prospects? Are reproductive methods that amount to dangerous experimentation on their children really a road to freedom for gay families? Or is the language of equality and empowerment being used to justify human experimentation that puts these children at great risk?

Previously on Biopolitical Times:

• Researchers produce two-father mice babies, and bait the hype trap
• Other uses for laboratory-produced sperm?
• Gene of the Week: One-night stand
• Cloning and Stem Cells: A Fake, a Red Herring, and a Surprise