Diagnosis
Lab-grown human eggs and sperm ‘about seven years away’
Scientists say lab-grown human sex cells could be less than a decade from reality, with major implications for fertility and reproduction.
The technology could, in theory, allow anyone to have biological children, regardless of sex, fertility or age.
Researchers are making rapid progress towards turning adult skin or blood cells into eggs and sperm through a process known as in-vitro gametogenesis (IVG) – a method that reprogrammes cells genetically to become gametes.
The technique typically starts by converting adult cells into stem cells, which are then guided into becoming primordial germ cells – the precursors to eggs and sperm.
These are placed inside a lab-grown organoid (a miniature version of an organ), which provides the biological signals needed to develop them further.
Prof Katsuhiko Hayashi, a developmental geneticist at the University of Osaka, told a meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Paris this week that his lab is about seven years away from creating viable human sperm.
Other frontrunners include a team at the University of Kyoto and California-based startup Conception Biosciences, whose Silicon Valley backers include OpenAI founder Sam Altman.
Conception’s chief executive told the Guardian the company is focused on producing clinical-grade human eggs and believes the technology could reverse population decline and open the door to human gene editing.
Hayashi said: “I feel a bit of pressure. It feels like being in a race.
“On the other hand, I always try to persuade myself to keep to a scientific sense of value.”
Hayashi’s lab has already produced baby mice with two biological fathers, suggesting the technique could one day be used by same-sex couples.
He said the lab receives emails from prospective fertility patients about once a week.
He said: “We get emails from [fertility] patients, maybe once a week.
“Some people say: ‘I can come to Japan.’ So I feel the demand from people.”
Matt Krisiloff, chief executive of Conception Biosciences, said: “Just the aspect alone of pushing the fertility clock … to potentially allow women to have children at a much older age would be huge.
“Outside of social policy, in the long term this technology might be the best tool we have to reverse population decline dynamics due to its potential to significantly expand that family planning window.”
Hayashi presented his team’s latest progress at the event, including the creation of primitive mouse sperm inside a lab-grown testicle organoid measuring about 1mm across, and the development of a human ovary organoid – a step towards growing human eggs in the lab.
Inside the artificial testes, Hayashi’s team managed to grow spermatocytes – the precursors of sperm cells – before the cells died.
He said an updated version of the organoid with a better oxygen supply could allow the cells to reach maturity.
Hayashi estimated that viable lab-grown human sperm could be about seven years away.
Creating sperm from female cells, he said, would be “technically challenging, but I don’t say it is impossible.”
He also suggested that his former colleague Prof Mitinori Saitou, based at Kyoto University, or Conception Biosciences could be ahead in the race.
“But they [Conception] are really, really secretive,” he added.
Others agreed with Hayashi’s timescale.
“People might not realise how quickly the science is moving,” said Prof Rod Mitchell, research lead for male fertility preservation in children with cancer at the University of Edinburgh.
“It’s now realistic that we will be looking at eggs or sperm generated from immature cells in the testicle or ovary in five or 10 years’ time.
“I think that is a realistic estimate rather than the standard answer to questions about timescale.”
Prof Allan Pacey, professor of andrology and deputy vice-president at the University of Manchester, said: “I think somebody will crack it. I’m ready for it. Whether society has realised, I don’t know.”
While several labs have successfully produced baby mice from lab-grown eggs, producing viable human eggs has been far more technically difficult.
A recent breakthrough in understanding how eggs stay dormant in the ovary for years could prove key.
Krisiloff declined to share detailed updates but said the company is “making really good progress on getting to a full protocol”.
In the best case, he said, the technology could reach the clinic within five years – though it may take longer.
Most researchers believe years of testing would be required to ensure that lab-grown cells do not carry genetic mutations that could be passed to embryos and future generations.
Some mice created using lab-grown cells have lived normal lifespans and been fertile.
Hayashi said: “We really need to prove that this kind of technology is safe.
“This is a big obligation.”
In the UK, using lab-grown eggs or sperm in fertility treatment is currently illegal.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is already considering how safety could be ensured and what testing would be needed before clinical use could be approved.
Mitchell said:“The idea that you can take a cell that was never supposed to be a sperm or an egg and make it into a sperm or an egg is incredible.
“But it does bring the problem of safety. We need to be confident that it’s safe before we could ever use those cells to make a baby.”
Female sex may not raise stroke risk across all atrial fibrillation (AF) patients, with higher risk mainly seen in women aged 75 and older, a study suggests.
Researchers said stroke prevention for women with the condition should be more personalised, especially for patients under 75.
Dr Amitabh C Pandey, director of cardiovascular translational research at Tulane University School of Medicine, said: “For years, female sex has been included as a risk factor along with other factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes, meaning women were more likely to be prescribed anticoagulants.
“Our study shows younger women may not have as much added stroke risk as previously thought, while older women, particularly those over 75, appear to have a higher risk that deserves close attention.”
The new Tulane University study challenges a long-standing assumption in heart care that being female automatically increases stroke risk for patients with atrial fibrillation.
Atrial fibrillation, often called AF, is a common heart rhythm disorder that causes the heart to beat irregularly.
It is associated with a higher risk of stroke and is often treated with anticoagulants, also known as blood thinners.
The study found that stroke risk did not increase equally across all female patients with AF.
Instead, researchers said being female may act more as a risk modifier, with increased stroke risk seen primarily among women aged 75 and older or those with a greater burden of other health conditions.
Clinicians often use a scoring system to decide whether people with AF should be prescribed blood thinners.
The system gives points for factors including age, heart failure, diabetes, previous stroke, vascular disease and high blood pressure.
Women also receive one point for sex alone.
Researchers said this can mean women with AF become eligible for blood thinners earlier or more often than men with otherwise similar risk profiles.
While blood thinners can help prevent clot-related strokes, they can also increase the risk of bruising, prolonged bleeding, gastrointestinal bleeding and other serious complications.
The researchers analysed approximately 950,000 patients with AF using TriNetX, a large anonymised electronic health record database.
They compared stroke outcomes between male and female patients across three age groups: younger than 65, 65 to 74, and 75 and older.
Male and female patients were matched based on age, other health problems and whether they had been prescribed anticoagulation medicine.
Among patients younger than 75, the study found no significant difference in one-year stroke risk between men and women.
However, among patients aged 75 and older, women had a modest but statistically significant increase in stroke risk compared with men.
In patients aged 75 and older with no additional risk factors beyond age, women had about one additional stroke per 629 patients compared with their male counterparts.
The findings support growing interest in a newer AF risk score, known as CHA2DS2-VA, which removes sex as a standalone risk factor.
However, researchers said more studies are needed and medical guidance remains inconsistent.
Han Feng, assistant professor at Tulane University School of Medicine, said: “This general approach came from women being underrepresented in AFib trials and studies comprising only about one-third of study populations.
“Our study shows not all women with AFib have the same risk profile, and these decisions should be individualised.
Pandey said: “These findings highlight the need for modern tools and approaches that can personalise risk profiles to individuals.
“The goal is not to undertreat patients who need stroke prevention, but to better identify who is most likely to benefit from anticoagulation and who may be exposed to unnecessary risk.”
AI may help speed breast cancer diagnosis for high-risk women after abnormal mammograms, a study suggests.
Women with abnormal mammograms often wait weeks to learn whether they have breast cancer.
Researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley said an AI-guided workflow could help reduce that wait by quickly identifying those most likely to have the disease. Some women could move from imaging to evaluation, and sometimes biopsy, in a single day.
Dr Maggie Chung, first author of the study, said: “This is a really an exciting time.
“This moves us closer to personalised care, where we can tailor a plan so that each patient gets the right intervention at the right time.”
The study used an open-source AI model called Mirai.
The model was trained on hundreds of thousands of mammograms linked to patients’ cancer outcomes.
A mammogram is an X-ray scan of the breast used to look for signs of cancer. A biopsy involves taking a small tissue sample to test for disease.
The AI tool is designed to detect subtle patterns in screening mammograms and predict a woman’s cancer risk.
Researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley applied the model to more than 4,100 screening mammograms at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.
Mirai identified 525 women, about 12.7 per cent of screened patients, as high risk.
Those patients could receive an interpretation of their mammograms immediately after the scan and have additional diagnostic imaging for suspicious areas on the same day.
Some women who needed biopsies were also able to have them on the same day.
The researchers said Mirai reduced the wait time for diagnostic evaluation from several weeks to about an hour.
For women who were ultimately diagnosed with breast cancer, it reduced the average wait for biopsy from more than two months to fewer than 10 days.
The researchers stressed that Mirai does not replace radiologists or make diagnoses on its own.
Instead, it acts as a triage tool to help physicians identify the patients who can benefit most from accelerated care.
The team analysed more than 114,000 archival mammograms before launching the programme, to ensure the model would capture enough high-risk patients without overloading the clinic with too many expedited evaluations.
The researchers said they hope AI will support a more personalised approach to breast cancer screening tailored to each patient’s breast cancer risk.
Chung said: “Right now, many women follow the same screening schedule but their individual risk can be very different.
“AI risk assessment gives us the chance to identify the women most likely to benefit from expedited care and get them what they need.”
Adam Yala, senior author of the study and a data scientist at UC Berkeley, said: “This is a powerful example of how AI can be a collaborative partner for physicians.
“It shows how we can improve care when we bring clinicians and data scientists together to design these systems.”
Type 2 diabetes diagnoses are rising twice as fast in women under 40 as in women over 40, new data shows.
Type 2 diabetes is a serious condition and can lead to complications such as heart attacks and strokes. When it develops in younger people, it can be more aggressive and have more severe and acute effects.
Diagnoses in women under 40 rose by 47 per cent between 2017/18 and 2023/24. By comparison, diagnoses rose by 22 per cent in women aged 40 to 79.
During the same period, type 2 diabetes diagnoses in men under 40 increased by 34 per cent.
Diabetes UK said it is concerned about the follow-up care offered to women who have had gestational diabetes, also known as GDM, which increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes after pregnancy.
Gestational diabetes is high blood sugar that develops during pregnancy and usually goes away after birth, but it raises the risk of type 2 diabetes later.
Colette Marshall, chief executive at Diabetes UK, said: “These figures should be a wake-up call. Type 2 diabetes is rising twice as fast in younger women compared to older women, and a crucial opportunity for prevention is being missed. Every diagnosis is life-changing, but when it develops in younger people, type 2 diabetes is even more aggressive.
“Pregnancy shouldn’t be a pathway to ill health. Yet despite facing a much higher risk of type 2 diabetes, too many women with GDM receive little or no follow-up care after pregnancy.
“As the Government turns its Strategy into action, support for women who have had gestational diabetes must not be overlooked.”
Last year, the NHS published the first national GDM audit for England in 2024/25, which revealed inconsistencies in follow-up care.
Only 57 per cent of women with GDM received an annual HbA1c test, which should be offered to every woman with GDM.
An HbA1c test measures average blood sugar levels over the previous two to three months.
Only 4.5 per cent of women had received support through the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme.
The report also found that 11 per cent of women developed prediabetes within five years of having GDM, while 15 per cent developed type 2 diabetes within 10 years.
Prediabetes means blood sugar levels are higher than normal and a person has a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
A recent survey funded by Diabetes UK also found that more than a third of women with GDM felt abandoned by healthcare services after giving birth.
If you live in England and have had gestational diabetes, you can self-refer to the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme, which supports people at risk of developing type 2 diabetes. If you live in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, you can speak to your GP about support.
Diabetes UK has written to women’s health minister Baroness Merron calling for urgent improvements to postnatal support for those diagnosed with GDM during pregnancy.
GDM affects between 10 and 20 per cent of pregnant women, but Diabetes UK said cases have long been underreported and UK-wide data on the condition has not been readily available.
The charity said poor follow-up care for women who have had GDM may be contributing to rising rates of type 2 diabetes in younger women.
It is calling for consistent postnatal follow-ups for women after GDM, more referrals to the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme, greater accountability for improvements in postnatal care, and action on inequalities affecting women from deprived and minority ethnic communities.
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