Genetic engineers, as we quaintly used to call people who tinker with genes, have crossed another scientific-ethical line. According to a study in Nature, Stanford researchers have used stem cells to produce the precursors of human sperm and eggs.
Rob Waters of Bloomberg is quick–perhaps a little too quick–to tell us what this means: “Stem cells were changed to form the precursors of sperm and eggs in a research advance that may lead to better ways of treating the infertility affecting 10 to 15 percent of would-be parents in the U.S.”
That’s a lot to pack into one sentence, even if it is a short, quick one. He repeats the accomplishment in the second graf, and it’s not until the fourth graf that he gives us the scientific import, quoting the researcher, who says “We now have a human system to examine germ cell development.” Waters goes on to explain that the new research could lead to the manufacture of sperm and eggs from patients’ stem cells that could then be used, in turn, with in vitro fertilization to make stem-cell babies, you might say. But he notes that “her goal is to use her new methods to study infertility in a laboratory dish and hunt for drugs that could correct it.”
It’s a solid story, but sometimes we need to hear the scientific news and be able to pause for a breath before having the practical implications heaped upon us. This is pretty cool stuff, and a little frightening, and should make news even if it had no applications in IVF.
UPI, in a very short story on upi.com, leads with “Stanford University researchers say they’ve discovered how to transform human embryonic stem cells into germ cells.” A confession: I know what germs cells are, especially if I’ve just been reminded. But, honestly, I’m not sure that I could have told you this morning, before I started this search, that germ cells were precursors of sperm and eggs. A little help on that in the UPI lede would be nice for the readers, like me, who aren’t always exactly sure what germ cells are.
Others:
Richard Alleyne of the Telegraph in the UK goes for the infertility angle in a lede that actually appears as a sub-hed on the web: “Scientists have moved a step closer to creating human sperm and eggs from stem cells in research that could end fertility problems.” That goes a little too far. The research might well help with some fertility problems, but I doubt it would end all of them.
The UK–which gave the world in vitro fertilization–seemed unusually interested in this story. The Press Association also went for the fertility angle: “Scientists have used embryonic stem cells to create the precursors of human sperm and eggs in an experiment they hope will aid infertility treatments.” In its third graf, however, it gave us a bit of science that most of the others didn’t highlight: “A technique called RNA silencing was then used to control the activity of key genes involved in germ cell development.” Some readers have heard of this, even if they don’t know exactly what it is, so it’s nice to mention it. It does, of course, require explanation.
I’d add a few more, but, sadly, I didn’t find too many more. A story of this importance should be covered by all the major news outlets, but most of their reporters were, perhaps, too busy studying the terms of their buyout offers.
Grist for the mill: Stanford press release.
– Paul Raeburn
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