{"id":211437,"date":"2025-06-24T21:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/211437\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T21:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:49:11","slug":"first-mouse-with-two-biological-fathers-has-its-own-babies-in-breakthrough-that-could-pave-the-way-for-gay-men-to-have-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/211437\/","title":{"rendered":"First mouse with two biological FATHERS has its own babies – in breakthrough that could pave the way for gay men to have children"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time, mice born to two fathers have grown up and produced offspring, scientists in China<\/a>\u00a0have revealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University\u00a0managed to insert two sperm cells – one from each father – into a mouse egg whose nucleus had been removed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A gene editing technique was then used to reprogram parts of the sperm DNA to\u00a0allow an embryo to develop \u2013 a process called androgenesis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The embryo, featuring the genetic material from two fathers, was transferred to a female womb and allowed to grow to term.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, the resulting offspring (male) managed to grow to adulthood and become a parent after mating conventionally with a female.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In their lab experiments, the researchers managed to successfully demonstrate the method twice \u2013 birthing two fertile male mice, both with two fathers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The promising breakthrough could pave the way for two gay men to have a child of their own who can also go on to have a family.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, experts have cautioned that there is still a way to go before any such procedures are attempted in humans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"These <\/p>\n

These adult male mice, which each have the genetic material of their two fathers, have gone on to have offspring of their own<\/p>\n

Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n

‘In this study, we report the generation of fertile androgenetic mice,’ the Chinese experts say in their paper, published in\u00a0the journal PNAS<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Our findings, together with previous achievements of uniparental reproduction in mammals, support previous speculation that genomic imprinting is the fundamental barrier to the full-term development of uniparental mammalian embryos.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Experts caution that we are not ready to start such experiments in humans, which could be deeply unethical.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Christophe Galichet, research operations manager at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre in\u00a0London, points out that the success rate of the experiments was very low.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of 259 mice embryos that were transferred to female mice, just two survived, grew to adulthood and then fathered their own offspring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘This research on generating offspring from same-sex parents is promising,’ Galichet, who was not involved with the experiments, told\u00a0New Scientist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘[But] it is unthinkable to translate it to humans due to the large number of eggs required, the high number of surrogate women needed and the low success rate.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, gay couples who want to have children usually rely on a surrogate mother or father to bring a child into the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Today, <\/p>\n

Today, gay couples who want to have children usually rely on a surrogate mother or father to bring a child into the world (file photo)<\/p>\n

How did the scientists do it?\u00a0 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Experts took sperm from two male mice and injected it into an immature egg cell with its genetic material removed (known as enucleation)<\/li>\n
  2. Gene editing was then used to reprogram seven parts of the sperm DNA to allow an embryo to develop<\/li>\n
  3. The embryo, featuring the genetic material from two fathers, was transferred to a female womb and allowed to grow to term\u00a0<\/li>\n
  4. The offspring grew to adulthood and became a parent after mating with a member of the opposite sex\u00a0<\/li>\n
  5. These offspring appeared normal in terms of size, weight, appearance<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Unlike with a pair of heterosexual parents, this means that one of the couple is not actually related to the child.\u00a0So it’s long been a dream for gay couples to raise a child who has genetic material from both fathers (or both mothers).\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Back in 2023, researchers revealed they’d been able to create mice from two biological fathers for the first time<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Because mice are actually genetically very similar to us, the promising results hinted the feat could be replicable in humans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    But even if a human child could be birthed from two fathers, it potentially threw a huge ethical quandary into the mix: What if that human child is not able to have children of their own through normal conception when they reach adulthood?<\/p>\n

    Fortunately, these new experiments suggest this might not be an issue.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

    The human related to both of his or her fathers would grow up and be able to have a family of their own, the results suggest.<\/p>\n

    During heterosexual reproduction, genetic material from a male carried by the sperm combines with genetic material from a female contained in the egg, or ovum.<\/p>\n

    When this happens, a group of genes called ‘homologous chromosomes’ from the mother come together with those from the father and combine in a process called ‘crossing over’.<\/p>\n

    \"A <\/p>\n

    A gene editing technique was then used to reprogram parts of the sperm DNA to allow an embryo to develop \u2013 a process called androgenesis (file photo)\u00a0<\/p>\n

    But when both sets of homologous chromosomes come from either two males or two females<\/a>, the genes don’t copy over properly, leading to ‘imprinting abnormalities’ and\u00a0developmental defects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    That’s why the researchers had to turn to gene editing, which makes tweaks in the DNA, and\u00a0target genes responsible for imprinting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Researchers are also considering this approach in larger animals like monkeys \u2013 but the technological hurdles will be significantly larger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Dr Helen O\u2019Neill, molecular geneticist at the University College London, called the new work a ‘major step forward’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    ‘It confirms that genomic imprinting is the main barrier to uniparental reproduction in mammals and shows it can be overcome,’ she told New Scientist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Earlier this year, another Chinese team got mice with two fathers to grow to adulthood by editing 20 different genes in their stem cells<\/a>, but the rodents weren\u2019t fertile.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    What is gene editing? <\/p>\n

    Genome editing enables scientists to make changes to DNA, leading to changes in physical traits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Scientists use different technologies to do this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    These technologies act like scissors, cutting the DNA at a specific spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Then scientists can remove, add, or replace the DNA where it was cut.<\/p>\n

    The first genome editing technologies were developed in the late 1900s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    More recently, a new genome editing tool called CRISPR, invented in 2009, has made it easier than ever to edit DNA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    The acronym stands for ‘Clustered Regularly Inter-Spaced Palindromic Repeats’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    The technique involves a DNA cutting enzyme and a small tag which tells the enzyme where to cut.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    By editing this tag, scientists are able to target the enzyme to specific regions of DNA and make precise cuts, wherever they like.<\/p>\n

    It has been used to ‘silence’ genes – effectively switching them off.<\/p>\n

    When cellular machinery repairs the DNA break, it removes a small snip of DNA.<\/p>\n

    In this way, researchers can precisely turn off specific genes in the genome.<\/p>\n

    Source: US National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time, mice born to two fathers have grown up and produced offspring, scientists in China\u00a0have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1395,92,257,70,261,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-211437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-london","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-sciencetech","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114740551105835037","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}