For First Time, Scientists Make Embryos From Human Skin DNA

For the first time, US scientists have made early-stage human embryos by manipulating DNA taken from people’s skin cells and then fertilising it with sperm.

The research was by a team at Oregon Health and Science University. The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

BBC quoted the experts as saying that the new technique takes the nucleus – which houses a copy of the entire genetic code needed to build the body – out of a skin cell. This is then placed inside a donor egg that has been stripped of its genetic instructions.

This will not only help people to overcome infertility due to old age or disease but also allow same-sex couples to have a genetically related child.

“We achieved something that was thought to be impossible," said Prof. Shoukhrat Mitalipov, th