Posted on 05/08/2009 2:42:31 PM PDT by MyTwoCopperCoins
WASHINGTON: Scientists have grown a human ovary in the laboratory from slivers of ovarian tissue which has been able to turn an immature human egg into a mature one, a breakthrough they claim may soon offer women cancer patients more chances of conceiving.
To create the artificial ovary, a team at the Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island started with theca cells, which form the outer coating of the follicle which holds the egg and produces a precursor to oestrogen.
The scientists got their cells from ovaries that had been removed from young women for other reasons. A gel mould shaped like a honeycomb was seeded with theca cells, which grew into a structure 2mm wide.
From the fluid surrounding eggs of another set of women undergoing IVF, the team extracted granulosa cells, which produce the hormone oestradiol and help eggs to mature. They used a mould to form them into spherical clumps, which they placed into cavities in the honeycomb.
Next they took a human egg that was about one week shy of ovulation and placed it into the structure along with follicle-stimulating hormone, which helps egg growth but is not released in the ovaries.
The egg took just 72 hours to develop to the point where it could be fertilised - at this point it had developed a "polar body", a small structure only produced once an egg is mature, the New Scientist reported.
Cancer treatment can destroy women's eggs so artificial ovaries could give them many more chances of conceiving. Currently, only mature eggs are taken and frozen before treatment, but if eggs could be matured outside the body, lots of immature eggs could be stored instead. Researchers, too, could use an artificial ovary to test if potential toxins affect maturing eggs.
The next step will be to see if the ovary can mature even younger eggs, known as primordial cells, which women have in their thousands. "We're hoping to take eggs that are very immature and mature them," says Carson. Krotz believes this could be done in 10 days, compared with the 280 or more days it would take in a woman's body. Eggs seem to mature faster outside the body, which may be because the artificial ovary lacks factors produced by the body that inhibit the process.
The new study follows recent research that suggested that though women who had their ovaries removed developed fewer breast cancers, they were more likely to develop heart disease than women who kept their ovaries, and they were more likely to die.
And people say God has nothing to do with religion.
God had to be in on this.
You got teenagers breeding like mice, 20 year-olds aborting at will, thirty-year olds giving birth to entire basketball teams, and forty-year olds paying people to have the kids for them. And these asshats have to grow kids in petri dishes. Good thing it’s almost cocktail hour.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.