Diagnosis
Scientists turn human skin cells into eggs in IVF breakthrough
Researchers have created human eggs from skin cells, in a breakthrough that could transform IVF treatment for couples who have no other options.
The work remains at an early stage, but if scientists can refine the process it could allow women who are infertile due to age, illness or medical treatment to have genetically related eggs.
The same technique could also be used to make eggs for same-sex male couples.
Prof Shoukhrat Mitalipov, who led the research at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, said: “The largest group of patients who might benefit would be women of advanced maternal age.
“Another group are those who have been through chemotherapy because that can affect their ability to have viable eggs.”
While women are expected to be the primary beneficiaries, the skin cells used to make eggs need not come from potential mothers.
“We used female skin cells in this study, but you could use skin cells from males as well,” Mitalipov told the Guardian.
“You could make eggs for men, and that way, of course, this would be applicable to same-sex couples.”
The work draws on cloning techniques pioneered in the 1990s at the Roslin Institute in Scotland.
A team led by the late Ian Wilmut used somatic cell nuclear transfer – a process that moves genetic material between cells – to create Dolly the sheep.
The procedure involved removing the nucleus (the cell’s control centre containing genetic information) from an adult sheep cell and placing it into a sheep egg that had had its own nucleus removed.
The resulting embryo was carried to term in a surrogate mother.
The Oregon team took a similar approach by collecting skin cells from women and removing the nucleus from each.
The nucleus, which contains 46 chromosomes carrying around 20,000 genes that make up the human genetic code, was placed into healthy donor eggs that had had their own nuclei removed.
The main challenge for scientists was that healthy human eggs normally contain only 23 chromosomes.
Another 23 come from sperm during fertilisation, producing the full set of 46 required for development into an embryo and eventually a baby.
Writing in Nature Communications, the Oregon team described how they tackled the problem of excess chromosomes.
After fertilising the eggs with sperm, they activated them using a compound called roscovitine.
This caused the eggs to move roughly half of their chromosomes into a structure called a polar body – a small cell formed during egg development – leaving the remaining chromosomes to pair with those from the sperm.
In a healthy fertilised human egg, 23 chromosomes from the mother pair with 23 from the father.
However, the Oregon team found that in their lab-created eggs, the chromosomes paired up at random. This led to embryos with the wrong number of chromosomes or incorrect pairings.
“These abnormal chromosome complements would not be expected to result in a healthy baby,” said Prof Paula Amato, a co-author of the study at Oregon.
The team is now working to refine the process.
Of the 82 eggs created, fewer than 10 per cent developed to the stage at which embryos are typically transferred during IVF.
None were cultured beyond six days, suggesting the process remains inefficient.
Mitalipov described the work as a “proof of concept” with more challenges ahead. Perfecting the method and proving its safety in patients could take another decade.
“I think it’s going to be harder than what we’ve done over the years thus far, but it’s not impossible,” he said.
Other scientists praised the breakthrough.
Prof Richard Anderson of the University of Edinburgh said: “Many women are unable to have a family because they have lost their eggs, which can occur for a range of reasons including after cancer treatment.
“The ability to generate new eggs would be a major advance.
“There will be very important safety concerns, but this study is a step toward helping many women have their own genetic children.”
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.
A genomic test may help some women with breast cancer avoid chemotherapy, with near-identical outcomes in an international trial.
The findings suggest patients with a low test score could be treated with hormone therapy alone without increasing the risk of their cancer returning.
Researchers said the results could support more personalised treatment decisions and spare some women the side-effects of chemotherapy.
Prof Rob Stein, the trial’s chief investigator and a professor of breast oncology at UCL, said: “Optima addresses a longstanding challenge in breast cancer care: identifying who truly benefits from chemotherapy and who does not.
“Our findings show that many patients can safely avoid chemotherapy without compromising their outcomes.
“These results mark an important and significant step toward more personalised treatment.
“The trial has successfully used tumour biology to guide decisions rather than relying solely on traditional clinical features.”
Breast cancer treatment usually involves surgery to remove tumours. Chemotherapy is then often recommended if doctors believe there is a risk the disease will return.
Chemotherapy can cause side-effects including hair loss, rashes, nausea, insomnia and fatigue. Some women may also face longer-term consequences such as infertility, cognitive impairment or early menopause.
The Optima trial followed more than 4,000 patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer in the UK, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand.
The trial was led by University College London.
One woman who took part in the trial told the Guardian that being able to skip chemotherapy felt “like Christmas”. Nine years after being diagnosed, taking the test and skipping chemotherapy, she is healthy and enjoying a full and active life.
The trial tested whether a genomic test could identify which patients need chemotherapy and which could safely avoid it.
The Prosigna test, made by diagnostics company Veracyte, analyses the activity of 50 genes in tumour tissue. It identifies the molecular subtype of the cancer and gives a score estimating the risk of breast cancer returning in the next 10 years.
The randomised trial involved 4,429 patients aged 40 or over with hormone-positive breast cancer. Hormone-positive breast cancer grows in response to hormones such as oestrogen or progesterone. It is the most common form of breast cancer, accounting for up to 80 per cent of cases globally.
Participants were assigned to one of two groups. In the standard treatment group, patients received chemotherapy followed by hormone therapy.
In the second group, patients had their tumours analysed using the genomic test. Those with a high score received chemotherapy and hormone therapy. Those with a low score received hormone therapy alone.
Radiotherapy and other treatments were given as usual in both groups.
In the second group, outcomes were very similar whether chemotherapy was given or not. Five years after treatment, 95 per cent of patients who had chemotherapy and hormone therapy were alive and free from breast cancer recurrence, while 94 per cent of those who skipped chemotherapy were also alive and recurrence-free.
The findings suggest chemotherapy offered little or no additional benefit for patients with low test scores.
Some men also took part in the study, but researchers said there were too few to draw firm conclusions for this group.
The trial received funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Veracyte and cancer charities.
Prof Iain MacPherson, a co-chief investigator and professor of breast oncology at the University of Glasgow, said: “Optima provides robust, practice-changing evidence that we can safely reduce the use of chemotherapy for many patients with hormone-sensitive breast cancer.
“These findings represent a major step forward in delivering more personalised, precise care, ensuring that treatment decisions are driven by what will genuinely improve outcomes for patients, while avoiding unnecessary toxicity.
“The potential impact for both patients and health services is substantial.”
Menopause1 week agoPerimenopause misinformation ‘putting women at risk’
Insight4 weeks agoNIH Grant terminations disproportionately impact minority scientists, research finds
Adolescent health4 weeks agoWUKA brings Period-Positive Pool Party to London Aquatics Centre to keep girls swimming through puberty
Insight3 weeks agoPCOS renamed after decade-long campaign to end ‘cyst’ misconception
Events4 weeks agoWHIS 2026 unveils agenda and first speakers for the leading women’s health summit
Menopause4 weeks agoCBT shows promise for menopause insomnia and hot flashes
Hormonal health2 weeks agoNHS urged to update website following renaming of PCOS
News6 days agoThree menopause innovators shortlisted for Femtech World Award