Quest to create viable human sex cells in lab progressing rapidly, with huge implications for reproduction
Scientists are just a few years from creating viable human sex cells in the lab, according to an internationally renowned pioneer of the field, who says the advance could open up biology-defying possibilities for reproduction.
Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Katsuhiko Hayashi, a developmental geneticist at the University of Osaka, said rapid progress is being made towards being able to transform adult skin or blood cells into eggs and sperm, a feat of genetic conjury known as in-vitro gametogenesis (IVG).
His own lab is about seven years away from the milestone, he predicts. Other frontrunners include a team at the University of Kyoto and a California-based startup, Conception Biosciences, whose Silicon Valley backers include the OpenAI founder, Sam Altman and whose CEO told the Guardian that growing eggs in the lab “might be the best tool we have to reverse population decline” and could pave the way for human gene editing.
Why accept the suffering of having fewer workers? If the fertility rate of the world is around 2, there are enough workers to sustain a perfectly good life for everyone
You want it to get worse before it gets better, I don’t believe it’s necessary
Am I correct that you are proposing to stop population at two children per couple?
Not necessarily at that exact number, replacement is 2.1 which is what I’m actually proposing
It seems like you are for a stable population (let me know if that is wrong) and I am for a stable population at a lower level. I don’t think that these two positions are that far apart. I understand that you want to avoid the struggle of dealing with a lopsided generational distribution while I see population reduction, not just the elimination of growth, as necessary to improve the overall quality of life for all people*.
*While I was typing this, I thought to myself, “Oh yeah, okay. This is how Thanos got going.”