Currently, doctors are completing work on the creation of artificial queens in which embryos can develop outside the mother's body. This work is seen as a real breakthrough in the fight against childlessness, according to today's article by the influential British newspaper The Guardian.
Scientists managed to create a prototype of the female womb, obtained from cells taken from the body of women. Embryos successfully take root, attaching themselves to the walls of laboratory uterus, and begin to actively develop. However, experiments are still stopped at the stage of several days of embryo growth, since these experiments are in conflict with the law on artificial insemination.
“We hope to complete the process of creating artificial queens using the technique we discovered in a few years,” said Dr. Han-Chin Liu of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Artificial Insemination at Cornell University. "Now women with a womb defect or underdevelopment will be able to have children of their own for the first time."
The apparent progress in this area at the same time puts scientists in a difficult position. On the one hand, artificial uterus will finally put an end to various problems associated with childbirth, but, on the other hand, they will also create a lot of ethical problems, which are devoted to the largest scientific conference "The End to Natural Motherhood?" opening in Oklahoma next week.
Militant feminists are adding fuel to the fire, claiming that with the advent of artificial queens, men will be able to completely abandon women, removing them from the face of the earth, but retaining the ability to reproduce females.
Dr. Liu's job is to properly separate the cells lining the female womb and grow them in the laboratory using hormones and other growth factors.
Following this, Dr. Liu and his colleagues grow a whole cover of these cells on the backbone of biodegradable materials, which in shape completely resemble the internal structure of the female womb. The cells gradually grow, creating tissue, and the material that served as their basis is self-destructing under their influence. Nutrients and hormones such as estrogen are then added to the artificially created tissue.
Finally, the embryos left over from artificial insemination programs are taken and inserted into the rearing queens. Embryos attach to the walls of the artificial womb and begin to grow.
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While the experiments are interrupted on the sixth day. However, in the near future, Dr. Liu plans to continue his experiment by growing embryos for 14 days. This period is the maximum permitted by law for abortion. “It is important for us to see if the embryos can develop the venous system, and also whether the cells can develop a primitive placenta,” the doctors note.
The next stage of the research is experiments with artificial uterus of dogs and mice. If these experiments are successful, scientists will seek permission to extend the development of the human embryo.
A slightly different technique is used by Japanese scientists from the University of Tokyo. Professor Yoshinori Kuwabara's team removes the uterus from the goats and places them in sterile plastic containers filled with amniotic fluid (amniotic fluid), which is kept at a constant body temperature. Researchers keep the goat uterus alive and grow it for 10 days, feeding the containers with nutrients.
The experiments of the Japanese group are aimed at helping those women who suffer from miscarriages or premature birth, not being able to bear the fetus in due time.
At the same time, both groups of specialists are convinced that embryos can be grown in artificial queens for the entire nine months. Scientists say that this will be possible in the next few years. Artificial rearing of children will enable same-sex couples to have their own children.
While a lot of ethical problems are wrapped around these experiments, scientists continue to work, hoping to give the joy of motherhood to those whom nature has deprived of this happiness.