DNA surgery on embryos removes disease
Precise "chemical surgery" has been performed on human embryos to remove disease in a world first, Chinese researchers have reported. The team at Sun Yat-sen University used a technique called base editing to correct a single error out of the three billion "letters" of our genetic code. They altered lab-made embryos to remove the disease beta-thalassemia. The embryos were not implanted. The team says the approach may one day treat a range of inherited diseases. Base editing a
UK scientists edit DNA of human embryos
The blueprint for life - DNA - has been altered in human embryos for the first time in the UK. The team at the Francis Crick Institute are unravelling the mysteries of the earliest moments of life. Understanding what happens after a sperm fertilizes an egg could lead to ways of improving IVF or explain why some women miscarry. The embryos were modified shortly after fertilization and allowed to develop for seven days. Image: The genetic machinery needed to modify the DNA is i
Hang Out With Happy People — It Might Be Contagious
You can actually catch a good mood or a bad mood from your friends, according to a recent study in the journal Royal Society Open Science. But that shouldn’t stop you from hanging out with pals who are down in the dumps, say the study authors: Thankfully, the effect isn’t large enough to push you into depression. The new study adds to a growing body of research suggesting that happiness and sadness—as well as lifestyle and behavioral factors like smoking, drinking, obesity, f
Pregnant moms who take folic acid cut autism risk from pesticides
Children whose mothers took folic acid supplements early in their pregnancies were less likely to develop autism, even when the pregnant moms were exposed to pesticides linked to the neurodevelopmental disorder, a new study found. Mothers who were exposed to household or agricultural pesticides just before and during their pregnancies but who took high-dose folic acid cut in half the risk of their children developing autism when compared to women who received low doses of the
A New Way to Reproduce
Scientists are trying to manufacture eggs and sperm in the laboratory. Will it end reproduction as we know it? Let’s call him B.D., because that’s what his wife does on her infertility blog, Shooting Blanks. Several years ago, the 36-year-old learned he was azoospermatic. It means his body makes no sperm at all. During a recent phone interview, I could hear his wife in the background. She is 35 and facing what she describes as a terrifying countdown toward a life with no chil
Prospect of Synthetic Embryos Sparks New Bioethics Debate
An “embryoid” created from stem cells shares key features with a real human embryo, like an amniotic sac, but lacks other elements. Yue Shao had never seen anything quite like it. Two years ago, Shao, a mechanical engineer with a flair for biology, was working with embryonic stem cells, the kind derived from human embryos able to form any cell type. As he experimented with ways of getting cells to form more organized three-dimensional structures by growing them in scaffolds
Eight children have been born after uterus transplants
Eight children born after uterus transplants is the culmination of 18 years of research at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. From September 2014 to 2017, eight children have been born to mothers who had fertilized eggs returned after undergoing a uterus transplant. The very first attempt at a uterine transplant with a living donor was conducted in 2000 in Saudi Arabia. The attempt was unsuccessful and the transplant had to be removed shortly aft
