Human eggs have been fully grown in a laboratory for the first time in what has been hailed as a major fertility breakthrough.

Scientists removed egg cells from ovary tissue from girls at their earliest stage of development and grew them to the point at which they are ready for fertilisation.

The removal of ovarian tissue is currently carried out for child cancer sufferers about to undergo treatment such as chemotherapy which could make them infertile.

At the moment the eggs need to stored and reimplanted in later life but this risks reintroducing the cancer.

Scientists say this could lead to the fertility of young cancer patients being saved in future.

They are now applying for permission to fertilise the eggs in the lab.

Lead researcher Professor Evelyn Telfer, of the University of Edinburgh’s school of biological sciences, said: “Being able to fully develop human eggs in the lab could widen the scope of available fertility treatments.

“We are now working on optimising the conditions that support egg development in this way and studying how healthy they are.

“We also hope to find out, subject to regulatory approval, whether they can be fertilised.”

Scientists developed substances in which eggs could be grown, known as culture mediums, to support each stage of cell development.

Their findings, using tissue donated by women who were undergoing routine surgery, built on 30 years of research.

In previous studies scientists had developed mouse eggs to produce live offspring.

Dr Channa Jayasena, of Imperial College London, said: “Only mature eggs can be fertilised into a baby.

“This is an elegant piece of work, demonstrating for the first time that human eggs can be grown to maturity in a laboratory. It would take several years to translate this into a therapy.

“However, this is an important breakthrough, which could offer hope to women with infertility in the future.”

The latest study, published in Molecular Human Reproduction, is the first time a human egg has been developed in the lab from its earliest stage to full maturity.

It involved researchers at Edinburgh University, the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh, The Centre for Human Reproduction in New York and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh.

Prof Daniel Brison, of the University of Manchester, said: “This is an exciting breakthrough which shows for the first time that complete development of human eggs in the laboratory is possible, more than 20 years after this was achieved in mice.

“As the authors acknowledge, there is much more important research still to do, but this could pave the way for fertility preservation in women and girls with a wider variety of cancers than is possible using existing methods.” </s> Scientists have grown human egg cells to full maturity in the lab in a potential breakthrough for fertility treatment, they announced in a study published Friday.

Researchers in New York and Edinburgh developed a new method to grow eggs from very early-stage cells obtained from ovary tissue, a team reported in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction.

The eggs were grown to the point at which they could be fertilized.

This had previously been achieved with mouse egg cells, while human eggs had been successfully cultivated starting from a much later stage of development.

"The latest study is the first time a human egg has been developed in the lab from its earliest stage to full maturity," said a statement from the University of Edinburgh.

Experts who did not take part in the research hailed the achievement as promising, but stressed it would take years to translate into a safe and proven therapy.

The technique holds promise specifically for women who have to go through sterilising treatments such as chemotherapy.

It would allow them to freeze early-stage egg cells before undergoing treatment, to be matured in the lab at a later time to be fertilised with sperm to make a baby.

Traditionally, cancer patients can have a piece of ovary removed before chemotherapy, but reimplanting the tissue later may risk reintroducing cancer.

"This is an elegant piece of work, demonstrating for the first time that human eggs can be grown to maturity in a laboratory," Channa Jayasena of the Imperial College London said in a comment on the study results.

"It would take several years to translate this into a therapy. However, this is an important breakthrough, which could offer hope to women with infertility in the future."

Azim Surani of the University of Cambridge pointed out that the eggs yielded by the research were smaller than normal, and "it might be of interest to test the developmental potential of these eggs".

And Robin Lovell-Badge of The Francis Crick Institute said the procedure was "really quite inefficient", with only nine out of dozens of early-stage cells becoming mature eggs.

Study co-author Evelyn Telfer of the University of Edinburgh said the team was now studying how healthy the eggs are.

"We also hope to find out, subject to regulatory approval, whether they can be fertilized," she said. </s> Scientists in Scotland have produced the first fully-developed human eggs grown in a laboratory, saying the breakthrough could lead to improved fertility treatments.

The scientists at the University of Edinburgh said on Friday they had cultured egg cells, after their removal from ovarian tissue at the earliest stage of development, “to the point at which they are ready to be fertilised.”

“The advance could safeguard the fertility of girls with cancer ahead of potentially harmful medical treatment, such as chemotherapy,'' they said, following a joint study with other experts published in the academic journal Molecular Human Reproduction.

The scientists said it could also allow immature eggs taken from patients' ovarian tissue to be matured in the laboratory and stored for later fertilisation.

Evelyn Telfer, a professor in the university's school of biological sciences, said being able to fully develop human eggs in the lab could widen the scope of available fertility treatments.

“We are now working on optimising the conditions that support egg development in this way and studying how healthy they are.

“We also hope to find out, subject to regulatory approval, whether they can be fertilised,'' Telfer said. (dpa/NAN) </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption 'It could be of huge benefit to children having cancer treatment'

Human eggs have been grown in the laboratory for the first time, say researchers at the University of Edinburgh.

The team say the technique could lead to new ways of preserving the fertility of children having cancer treatment.

It is also an opportunity to explore how human eggs develop, much of which remains a mystery to science.

Experts said it was an exciting breakthrough, but more work was needed before it could be used clinically.

Women are born with immature eggs in their ovaries that can develop fully only after puberty.

It has taken decades of work, but scientists can now grow eggs to maturity outside of the ovary.

It requires carefully controlling laboratory conditions including oxygen levels, hormones, proteins that simulate growth and the medium in which the eggs are cultured.

'Very exciting'

But while the scientists have shown it is possible, the approach published in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction still needs refinement.

It is very inefficient with only 10% of eggs completing their journey to maturity.

And the eggs have not been fertilised, so it is uncertain how viable they are.

Prof Evelyn Telfer, one of the researchers, told the BBC: "It's very exciting to obtain proof of principle that it's possible to reach this stage in human tissue.

"But that has to be tempered by the whole lot of work needed to improve the culture conditions and test the quality of the oocytes [eggs].

"But apart from any clinical applications, this is a big breakthrough in improving understanding of human egg development."

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Image copyright University of Edinburgh Image caption A lab-grown, human egg made by scientists at the University of Edinburgh

The process is very tightly controlled and timed in the human body - some eggs will mature during the teenage years, others more than two decades later.

An egg needs to lose half its genetic material during development, otherwise there would be too much DNA when it was fertilised by a sperm.

This excess is cast off into a miniature cell called a polar body, but in the study the polar bodies were abnormally large.

"This is a concern," said Prof Telfer. But it is one she thinks can be addressed by improving the technology.

Work on mouse eggs, which was nailed 20 years ago, showed the technology could be used to produce live animals.

Matching this achievement in human tissue could eventually be used to help children having cancer treatment.

Cancer option

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy risks making you sterile.

Women can freeze matured eggs, or even embryos if they are fertilised with a partner's sperm, before starting treatment - but this is not possible for girls with childhood cancers.

At the moment they can have ovarian tissue frozen before treatment, which is then put back in to mature years later if the patient wants children of their own.

But if there are any abnormalities in the frozen sample then doctors will think it is too risky.

Being able to make eggs in the lab would be a safer option for those patients.

Mr Stuart Lavery, a consultant gynaecologist at Hammersmith Hospital, said: "This work represents a genuine step forward in our understanding.

"Although still in small numbers and requiring optimisation, this preliminary work offers hope for patients."

It would be legal to fertilise one of the lab-made eggs to create an embryo for research purposes in the UK.

But the team in Edinburgh do not have a licence to carry out the experiment. They are discussing whether to apply to the embryo authority for one, or collaborate with a centre that already has one.

Prof Azim Surani, the director of germline research at University of Cambridge's Gurdon Institute, said: "Molecular characterisation and chromosomal analysis is needed to show how these egg cells compare with normal eggs.

"It might be of interest to test the developmental potential of these eggs in culture to blastocyst stage, by attempting IVF."

Follow James on Twitter. </s> Women at risk of premature fertility loss might have cause for new hope as researchers reveal that human eggs can be developed in the lab from their earliest stages to maturity.

While the feat has previously been achieved for mouse eggs, and has given rise to live young after fertilisation, the process has proved tricky in humans.

Experts say the latest development could not only aid the understanding of how human eggs develop, but open the door to a new approach to fertility preservation for women at risk of premature fertility loss – such as those undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy.



The research could be particularly relevant for girls who have not gone through puberty. Currently, to preserve their fertility ovarian tissue is taken before treatment and frozen for later implantation.

“[For young girls] that is the only option they have to preserve their fertility,” said Prof Evelyn Telfer, co-author of the research from the University of Edinburgh.

But the approach has drawbacks. In the case of re-implanted tissue, “the big worry, and the big risk, is can you put cancer cells back,” said Stuart Lavery, a consultant gynaecologist at Hammersmith Hospital, who was not involved in the study.

The new research offers a way for eggs to be extracted, grown and used, without the need to re-implant the tissue. “When you have got the eggs, of course you would have no contaminating cells – hopefully it would be an embryo that you would be implanting back in,” said Telfer.

But, she warned, it would be several years before the technique could be used in clinics, with further tests needed to make sure the mature eggs are normal and the process safe. 



Writing in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction, researchers from Edinburgh and New York describe how they took ovarian tissue from 10 women in their late twenties and thirties and, over four steps involving different cocktails of nutrients, encouraged the eggs to develop from their earliest form to maturity. Of the 48 eggs that reached the penultimate step of the process, nine reached full maturity.



Although various teams have achieved different stages of the process before, the new work is the first time researchers have taken the same human eggs all the way from their earliest stages to the point at which they would be released from the ovaries. Before reaching this level of maturity, eggs cannot be fertilised.

Lavery added the new technique could also prove useful for women who have passed through puberty. While these women can have mature eggs collected before treatment, that approach also has problems.



“The patient has to go through the quick cycle of IVF before their chemo, so it can sometimes delay things, and also you may only get 15 eggs or so; because IVF is so inefficient, only having 10 or 15 eggs is not going to guarantee them a baby,” said Lavery. “With this [new] procedure, you could potentially get thousands or hundreds of eggs.”



Telfer adds that the new approach could also be useful for women whose eggs fail to fully develop in the body and, more fundamentally, will help boost our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the development of human eggs.

However, it will be many years before the research leads to new fertility preservation treatments. Among other issues, the authors note that the eggs developed faster than they would in the body, while a small cell known as a polar body – ejected in the final stages of the egg’s development when the number of chromosomes is halved – was unusually large, which might suggest abnormal development.

“This latest breakthrough is valuable, [but] significant further research is now needed to confirm that these eggs are healthy and functioning as they should do,” said Prof Helen Picton, an expert in reproduction and early development from the University of Leeds.

Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, a group leader at the Francis Crick Institute, was also cautious, noting it was possible that not all of the eggs were at the earliest stage of development to start with.

Telfer admits far more research is necessary, and hopes to get regulatory approval for future research. “The next step would be to try and fertilise these eggs and then to test the embryos that were produced, and then to go back and improve each of the steps.” </s> Scientists have grown human eggs in a laboratory for the first time - a breakthrough that could have huge implications for fertility treatment.

Egg cells were removed from ovary tissue at their earliest stage of development and grown to a point ready for fertilisation, according to a study published in Molecular Human Reproduction.

The development could help women undergoing harmful treatment, such as chemotherapy, allowing immature eggs to be recovered from patients, matured in a lab and stored for future fertilisation.

Scientists have previously matured human eggs from the late stage of development, however the fresh study is the first time a human egg has been developed in the laboratory from its earliest stage.

Scientists will next evaluate the health of the eggs and whether they are viable for fertilisation.

"Being able to fully develop human eggs in the lab could widen the scope of available fertility treatments," said lead researcher Professor Evelyn Telfer, of the University of Edinburgh's school of biological sciences.

"We are now working on optimising the conditions that support egg development in this way and studying how healthy they are.

"We also hope to find out, subject to regulatory approval, whether they can be fertilised."

Professor Daniel Brison, of the department of reproduction at the University of Manchester, said: "This is an exciting breakthrough which shows for the first time that complete development of human eggs in the laboratory is possible, more than 20 years after this was achieved in mice.

"As the authors acknowledge, there is much more important research still to do, but this could pave the way for fertility preservation in women and girls with a wider variety of cancers than is possible using existing methods."

But Professor Simon Fishel, founder and president of leading IVF treatment providers CARE Fertility, said further research was needed to establish whether eggs developed using the method could be healthy.

He said: "This study demonstrates that there is much laboratory research to be undertaken before we can be encouraged to believe that we will achieve healthy normal eggs for clinical purposes in vitro developed follicles derived from human ovarian cortical tissue." </s> For the first time, human eggs have been grown in a laboratory -- and the development could aid in the fertility of children undergoing cancer treatment, say researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Because chemotherapy and radiotherapy can make one sterile, women can freeze their eggs before treatment, the BBC reported. But this is not possible for girls with childhood cancers.

Females are born with immature eggs in their ovaries that can fully develop only after puberty.

The other option for young females is to freeze ovarian tissue before treatment. The tissue is then put back during adulthood if the patient wants to bear children.

But making eggs in the laboratory is considered a safer option.

After decades of research, scientists can now grow eggs to maturity outside of the ovary, the report said.

“This preliminary work offers hope for patients,” Stuart Lavery, a consultant gynecologist at Hammersmith Hospital, told the BBC.

The next step is to fertilize one of the lab-made eggs to create an embryo for further research, but researchers still need to obtain a license or partner with a facility that does, the report said.

Click here for more from the BBC. </s> Scientists have grown human eggs in a laboratory for the first time - a breakthrough that could have huge implications for fertility treatment.

Egg cells were removed from ovary tissue at their earliest stage of development and grown to a point ready for fertilisation, according to a study published in Molecular Human Reproduction.

The development could help women undergoing harmful treatment, such as chemotherapy, allowing immature eggs to be recovered from patients, matured in a lab and stored for future fertilisation.

Scientists have previously matured human eggs from the late stage of development, however the fresh study is the first time a human egg has been developed in the laboratory from its earliest stage.

Scientists will next evaluate the health of the eggs and whether they are viable for fertilisation. </s> Feb. 9, 2018 -- U.K. researchers who created the first laboratory-grown human eggs say their achievement could lead to news ways to preserve the fertility of girls undergoing radiation or chemotherapy for cancer.

However, only 10 percent of the eggs reached full maturity and the eggs were not fertilized, so it's unclear how viable they are, BBC News reported.

The University of Edinburgh research was published in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction.

"It's very exciting to obtain proof of principle that it's possible to reach this stage in human tissue," Professor Evelyn Telfer, one of the researchers, told BBC.

"But that has to be tempered by the whole lot of work needed to improve the culture conditions and test the quality of the oocytes (eggs)," she added.

Even without considering any clinical use, "this is a big breakthrough in improving understanding of human egg development," Telfer said.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh claim they have successfully brought prepubescent-sourced, immature human egg cells to maturity in a laboratory for the first time. The work may be significant because it may allow the harvesting and preservation of eggs from young girls undergoing toxic cancer treatment before their lifetime reservoirs of those cells are destroyed.