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Researchers create the first artificial ovary

By | September 14, 2010, 12:17 PM PDT

Researchers at Brown University and Women & Infants Hospital created the first artificial human ovary. This 3-D tissue structure was made with a triple cell line to mimic the functionality of the real organ.

Sandra Carson, director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Women & Infants Hospital, claims she didn’t intentionally create the ovary. She just wanted a better medium to conduct her experiments in.

With the help of Brown professor Jerry Morgan, the researchers used 3-D Petri dishes to direct cells (which were donated from patients in reproductive age) to form desired shapes.

It’s unclear just how this honeycomb structure will function like a normal ovary. Will it be able to produce eggs?

It might. Experiments show that the 3-D structure could nurture eggs from early antral follicle until the egg matures.

For now, the artificial ovary will be useful for research purposes. It will answer questions about how healthy ovaries work and be used to investigate what happens when eggs mature and how the reproductive system interacts with the environment.

For clinical uses, researchers expect this artificial ovary to preserve the fertility of women who with might undergo cancer treatment.

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Boonsri Dickinson

About Boonsri Dickinson

Boonsri Dickinson was a contributing editor for SmartPlanet from 2010 to 2012.

Boonsri Dickinson

Boonsri Dickinson

Contributing Editor

Boonsri Dickinson is a freelance journalist based in San Francisco. She has written for Discover, The Huffington Post, Forbes, Nature Biotech, Technewsdaily.com, Techstartups.com and AOL. She's currently a reporter for Business Insider. She holds degrees from the University of Florida and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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Boonsri Dickinson

Boonsri Dickinson

In the unlikely event that Boonsri has a professional or financial relationship with a company she writes about, it will be prominently disclosed.

She writes for SmartPlanet and is not an employee of CBS.

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0 Votes
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Why?
We are already over 6 billion people. Seems that womens ovaries
are working just fine on average. Too fine in fact. We have to find
an easy (and safe) way to stop them from working, particularly in
the third world. Anything more than one child per parent means
that some of the children will have to die if humanity is to survive
on earth. If everyone would commit to have only one child per
couple, then the earths overpopulation would be solved in about
50 years. And we HAVE to do this sooner or later, the earth can't
stand our present growthrate.
Posted by Dukhalion
15th Sep 2010
0 Votes
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Women with reproductive problems deserve to have kids
For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume couples are allowed only one child per family. Explain to me why a woman with reproductive problems should be denied the right to have her one child with her partner. You would have a choice to have no children or one child; why should others be denied that same choice?
Posted by zackers
15th Sep 2010
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RE: Researchers create the first artificial ovary
I acknowledge Your point, but it's not a question of denial. People
without legs should have the right to have legs, people with
dysfuctional brains should have the right to have a normal brain.
Poor people should have the right to be rich. But it's not
happening is it? Most humans are very aware of their "rights" but
very few think of their obligations. Do You (or whoever) really
have a "right" to have children? If so, where did this right
originate? And if You have lots of children, thereby reducing food
and other resources for other children, does this mean that the
parents of those "doomed" children happily grant You this right? I
think not.
Some may see reproductive problems as "the will of God" others
as an evolutionary way of decreasing populations, the result is
essentially the same. Of course most people want to have
children at some point, but there are already loads and loads of
orphants in the world, why not adopt instead? Own children are
no longer a "right", we have gone past that point a long time ago.
Now we must take individual responsibility not to destroy our
planet by overpopulation. Was it Spock from Star Trek that said
something like "The need of the many goes before the need of
the individual". When the earths population reaches 9 billion, or
15 billion, I think You will see my point very clearly. Look at all the
unemployed in the world today, if we increase our number, what
will the new people do for work? And all the homeless, what will
they eat? Where will they live? This is essentially a question of
logic against feeling, except that if feeling wins we are ALL
doomed. (And this is not directed against women, men get
reproductive problems too). We can act now of our free will, or we
can act later, by force and necessity. It is easier not to bring a
child to this world, than to decide who must die because of
insufficient resources. The world wars were our first warning,
the economic crises our second, the pandemics our third. I don't
think we will get many more before it's too late. But unfortunately
most people think "Well, my children don't have any serious
impact among 6 billion other people". But that's where they are
wrong.
Posted by Dukhalion
16th Sep 2010
0 Votes
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Artificial sperm is next?
And then, if an artificial egg is inseminated with an artificial sperm, without the egg's consent, would that be considered rape?
Posted by FiOS-Dave
16th Sep 2010
0 Votes
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Seem to Function Like an Egg Sac; On the Matter of Rights Must Consider ...
genetic diseases and other concerns that would not be removed from the population if we grant or provide people the ability to do something that their heritage obviously prevents from doing. Would it mean that their offspring are victims because they will suffer from a congenital defect? What of the providers and society that must be burdened in some way with the treatment for however long the life is determined to be prolonged?
Resources and energy would be diverted that would otherwise be more progressive and productive than enabling mere existence.
The other matter is restoring some function that was taken away from people suffering from injury or an accident. That seems more fair especially when regarding the idea that it avoids the continuance of genetic defects.
It's truly a dilemma since I'm very compassionate human being. As an accident victim myself that continues suffering, I've experienced negligence and fraud among many other ethical and legal issues that exposes the sociopaths and hypocrites that are allowed to operate in our nation without being held accountable for compensating victims for damages resulting from their crimes and injustices. It makes me spite the nation because all we hear are the ideals and fantasy but the reality is as sickening as it is totally opposite from the illusion.
Posted by donnydo77@...
4th Oct 2010
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