In world science, a super-sensation: a revolutionary breakthrough was made by the Japanese professor Yoshinori Kuwabara - he created an artificial uterus and managed to grow a kid in it. Now there is no longer any doubt: it's up to the homunculus, which scientists have raved about since the 13th century.
The world is inexorably approaching the line beyond which the very reproduction of man in artificial conditions will simply become a technology and a business. What other horizons does the conveyor belt of life open up?
This goat does not yet have a name, moreover, formally this animal does not even exist yet, but nevertheless it has already become a real scientific sensation, and photos of this beauty went around the world last week. The pictures are fantastic: Professor Yoshinori Kuwabara from Juntendo University in Tokyo bent over a translucent white bag in which a goat rests, entangled from head to hoof with flexible tubes and wires. This is the world's first artificial uterus, in which, according to the Japanese, the world's first artificial goat was raised, which is about to be born.
The news caused a real storm in the scientific world. Still would! 30 years ago, when scientists invented the in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure and conducted the first experiments on conceiving "test tube babies", the world suddenly learned with horror that men were no longer needed to procreate. It was then that fantastic films in the style of New Amazons appeared, predicting a quick and ruthless victory for feminism throughout the world. But progress does not stand still. And now it turns out that women are not needed to continue the human race. Strictly speaking, for the reproduction of homo sapiens, the person himself will soon no longer be needed.
Struggle for days and grams
Scientists seriously thought about the invention of an artificial uterus half a century ago, when medicine was faced with the task of maintaining the life of premature babies. In general, incubators for premature babies, which appeared in maternity hospitals in the late 70s of the last century, are the first models of artificial uterus - these plastic containers equipped with water mattresses were designed to simulate the conditions of a fetus in amniotic fluid in the mother's body. For this, the incubators maintain a constant temperature and air humidity (about 60 percent), and the incubators are equipped with a system of artificial lung ventilation and artificial feeding devices both through blood and through a nasogastric tube.
In 1979, doctors made the discovery that artificial ventilation of the lungs can not always save the life of a newborn. The fact is that the lungs of all organs develop last, and only at the 22-24th week of pregnancy a surfactant appears in the body of babies - a special substance that counteracts the collapse of the alveoli in the lungs (with the help of these tiny bubbles, gas exchange takes place when air oxygen passes into the blood, and carbon dioxide from the blood into the air). And if there is no surfactant, then ventilating the lungs is not only pointless, but also deadly.
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Therefore, to save babies, it is necessary to create not only a special gas environment, but also to synthesize many substances that the fetus receives from the mother. So doctors learned to simulate in laboratory conditions many processes occurring inside a person, and the "survival threshold" of babies was shifted from 24 to 20 weeks, that is, doctors learned to care for a 500-gram fetus, for some reason rejected by the mother's body. And every time this "threshold" can be shifted by at least a few grams, this event is tantamount to taking a new mountain peak - such is the price of the struggle for life. By the way, not so long ago in the Scientific Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology named after Academician V. I. Kulakov, a new world record was set: doctors managed to save the life of a premature girl weighing only 450 grams! I.e,it took over three decades of intense scientific research to move the "survival threshold" another 50 grams.
In the late 70s, another significant event took place: Louise Joy Brown, nicknamed Super-Baby by journalists, was born in London - this was the first child conceived using IVF. Scientists were able to simulate in vitro the processes of intrauterine development of the fetus both from the very beginning of the emergence of life at the cellular level, and in the final stages. A logical thought arose to combine these two processes into a single whole and create a kind of apparatus for raising people. True, then it seemed like pure fantasy - there was no substance in the world that could replace the placenta. As a result, physicians who studied the properties of this miracle tissue discovered stem cells and founded a new science - stem medicine, thanks to which a new scientific breakthrough became possible.
Race for the womb
Professor Yoshinori Kuwabara, head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Juntendo University, took up the problem of creating an artificial uterus back in 1995. Then he invented the "multimatka" - a tiny device, only 2 mm in diameter, which can hold up to 20 eggs of experimental mice. All of them can be fertilized at the same time, and they will develop until the time comes to carry out the implantation of the embryo into the uterus of the surrogate mother. True, in those years, due to violations of the temperature regime and acidity of the environment, embryos often died, and then Professor Kuwabara thought that unused eggs could not be frozen, but given the opportunity to develop. He soon developed a new technology for keeping fetuses alive. Professor Kuwabara removed uterus from goats and placed them in sterile plastic containers,filled with artificial amniotic fluid (amniotic fluid), in which the body temperature is constantly maintained. In these uterus, he placed the embryos of animals, feeding into containers a nutritious "broth".
“We provide embryos with comfortable conditions by imitating the natural environment in which they exist in the animal's body,” the authoritative magazine New Scientist quoted Yoshinori Kuwabara as saying. “All experiments with an artificial uterus carried out on goats have shown that the apparatus works more efficiently than usual. IVF artificial insemination, and more than half of the embryos in it grow healthy."
True, the scientists did not succeed in bringing the experiments to their logical conclusion - the birth of a healthy animal: all the embryos died at various stages. Nevertheless, over the years of countless experiments, the Japanese have been able to perfect the methods of maintaining life in artificial wombs to perfection. Polymers were also invented that can replace natural fabrics, but for now the Japanese prefer not to talk about these artificial materials, rightly fearing that any careless word will be immediately heard by competitors.
Indeed, today in the world among biotechnological laboratories a real race has unfolded for the right to create a working technology for the artificial cultivation of people. Americans, Koreans, and Europeans have their own projects of an artificial uterus. The most interesting project was developed by scientists from the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Artificial Insemination at Cornell University, who managed to grow from stem cells taken from women, a kind of female womb. Experiments on artificial insemination were also carried out, and, as the head of the research group, Dr. Han-Chin Liu, assured the journalists, the embryos successfully adhered to the walls of laboratory uterus. But soon the experiments were stopped for a number of moral and ethical reasons. But the fact remains:even if Yoshinori Kuwabara's experiment on the birth of an artificial goat ends in failure (and the cautious professor Kuwabara, as he explained on the university website, never excludes such a possibility), then by the combined efforts of scientists of the world an artificial uterus will appear one way or another, and within the next two three years.
It's a shame, however, that Russia is not even close to the list of participants in this new biotechnological revolution. It is doubly insulting - after all, at one time, Soviet scientists from the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences made many fundamental discoveries in the field of antenatal therapy (that is, treatment of the fetus before birth). You can also recall the work of "freak" Oleg Belokurov from the Leningrad Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology named after. BEFORE. Ott, who back in the 1970s tried to patent his "artificial woman" - that was the name of a device that, like incubators in maternity hospitals, with the help of light and heating water, simulated the intrauterine environment, only not for a newborn, but for a certain nutritious "broth "And a fertilized egg. The inventor was eventually subjected to real obstruction.
Of course, the academicians had good reasons - it is unlikely that this "woman" could bring full-fledged offspring, but the very fact of her appearance was evidence of the seething research work in the country's scientific laboratories. Today's Russian science has been reduced to the point that we can only master other people's developments, and even then not the most advanced ones. Nevertheless, the new biotechnological revolution will inevitably affect Russia, no matter how much the opposite would be desirable to all fans of the patriarchal order, traditional conservative "values" and spiritual "bonds" that defame even the idea of the possibility of surrogacy. There are even calls to deny surrogate children the opportunity to attend Christian churches. But what will happen to our conservatives when real replicants appear in the world - people who do not have biological mothers at all?
Is Russia ready for such changes?
Photo from Professor Kuwabara's lab: this is what an artificial goat fetus looks like in an artificial uterus
Non-childish questions
Undoubtedly, the Ogonyok correspondent was assured at the Scientific Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology named after Academician V. I. Kulakova, least of all physicians working in the field of biotechnology think about creating a new - "artificial" - humanity. So far, more mundane tasks are on the agenda. For example, new technologies will allow all women suffering from a uterine defect or underdevelopment to have their own children.
“New technologies will allow solving reproductive problems in many young couples,” says Professor Vladimir Bakharev. “The frequency of congenital hereditary pathologies in our country is so high that it is genetic factors that now occupy the second place among all factors of infant mortality. Today, up to 5 percent of newborns suffer from various hereditary pathologies, and therefore we insist that young couples undergo a genetic examination before conceiving a child.
The technology of growing a fetus in an artificial uterus will help solve all these problems. At the same time, none of the young parents even thinks about the technologies of genetic improvement of their offspring - they would be healthy, and thank God. However, even 100% healthy genes do not guarantee the full health of the baby. It also happens that one of the two twin brothers begins to literally absorb the other, taking away all his vitality, which in the future is fraught with problems for both. An artificial womb will help save the twins from such a strong brotherly "love".
Another area of application of new biotechnology is fetal surgery. These are operations on human embryos, which surgeons - for the sake of prenatal cure of an infant from heart defects - perform right in the mother's womb. Often these operations are very dangerous for the life of not only the baby, but also the mother. Now the risk can be significantly reduced by placing the baby in an artificial womb.
Mammoths and Paponts
Of course, the new biotechnological revolution opens up prospects not only for medicine. I remember that several years ago the director of the Mammoth Museum of NEFU Semyon Grigoriev from Yakutia shared his plans for the revival of these prehistoric animals. Nothing was required - to find living cells with mammoth DNA, and the mammoth's genetic code had already been calculated from the remains of wool. And find an elephant of suitable size for bearing a mammoth - after all, ancient mammoths were larger than today's elephants. True, the scientist lamented, in this case it will no longer be a purebred mammoth, but a half-breed, "elephant monkey". But thanks to the artificial uterus, you can grow even a mammoth, even an ancient giant mastodon.
By the way, the revival of mammoth breeding has long been a national idefix of Yakut scientists. Just imagine what prospects are opening up for Russian agriculture in the event of a successful completion of the experiment on the revival of mammoths! Imagine herds of these giant animals, perfectly adapted for life in the harsh tundra, which provide tons of super-useful product - hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and our coexistence with mammoths have led to the fact that it is the meat of mammoths that the human stomach digests best. In any case, this is what scientists who have studied the effect of mammoth meat on the human body say.
“In addition,” the Yakut scientists argued, “this is our unpaid human duty! After all, it was the anthropogenic factor that led to the complete extermination of mammoths - in other words, primitive hunters exterminated all these animals. And now, when we have entered a new stage of evolution, we must bring these amazing animals back to life.
Not only mammoths can return, but also other extinct species of fauna. For example, the Steller's cow is a giant aquatic mammal that was exterminated in the 18th century by the hunters of the Commander Islands. Or the marsupial Tasmanian wolf that once lived in Australia.
However, it will be much more interesting for genetic engineers to design new species - in biology, such animals are called chimeras. And the first samples of chimeras have already been created - for example, not so long ago an interspecies chimera of a sheep and a goat was obtained, experiments are underway to implant a part of the human genome into the genome of a pig. So far, such experiments have been limited not only by moral and ethical criteria, but also by the parameters of the mother's organism - after all, it is not enough for a biologist to get a chimeric embryo, it still needs to be raised and given birth. Now, as futurologists say, there will be no biological restrictions - you can grow anything, even a hamster the size of a hippopotamus, even a cross between an elephant and a hedgehog.
Sooner or later, the person himself will undergo reconstruction. Agree, it is unlikely that the governments of countries will be able to resist the temptation to grow in the laboratory the ideal soldiers of the future - powerful supermen, completely devoid of the ability to reflect on orders. And what about the idea of raising a race of masters and a race of servants - it is possible that in the next century the national structure of states will become obsolete, and society will turn to "new feudalism", when representatives of the elite will raise their servants, peasants and soldiers.
And it’s hard to even imagine how a person’s sex life will change. It is no coincidence that feminists were the first to sound the alarm. As soon as Professor Kuwabara published the first pictures of an unborn goat in a synthetic womb, his Internet page was attacked by indignant Japanese girls, who feared that because of this invention, men would soon be able to refuse to communicate with normal women.
Oh, it is felt that soon the braces around the world will crackle.
How biotech was born
1677
Dutch naturalist Anthony van Leeuwenhoek was the first to look through a microscope and compose a description of sperm.
1780
Italian priest and scientist Lazarro Spallanzani developed a technique for artificial insemination of dogs in order to improve the breed.
1790
Scottish researcher and physician John Hunter was the first to perform intrauterine insemination of a woman.
1827
German physician Karl Ernst von Baer was the first to describe the human ovum. Also, the first successful attempt was made to fertilize an egg in vitro in mammals (rabbits and guinea pigs) with the subsequent birth of offspring.
1897
Russian academician Viktorin Gruzdev conducted a study on the possibility of IVF fertilization of one rabbit with a donor egg taken from another rabbit.
1961
Doctors of the World Health Organization have developed a methodology for assessing the viability of preterm infants. It was believed that a child can be left only at birth after 28 weeks of pregnancy (out of the standard 38-42).
1977
Emergence of technologies for resuscitation of premature babies. The lower threshold for viability is shifted to 22 weeks.
1978
The birth of the world's first "test tube baby" Louise Brown. Prior to that, over 600 unsuccessful IVF attempts were made. In the USSR, the first test-tube baby was born in 1986.
1996
Dolly, a cloned sheep created by Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell at the Rosslyn Institute, Scotland, is born. Today scientists have cloned almost all types of animals and even, according to anonymous sources from South Korea, humans.
Vladimir Tikhomirov