Same-sex couples could soon be biological parents after a huge scientific breakthrough

A groundbreaking scientific development means same-sex couples may soon be able to be biological parents.

Last month, scientists in Britain announced a major breakthrough that means it may one day be possible to artificially produce sperm and eggs from human cells.

A milestone has been passed on the way to producing sperm in a laboratory, according to University of Cambridge’s developmental biologist Azim Surani, who was speaking at the Progress Educational Trust annual conference in December.

If further steps are made so same-sex couples can use their DNA to produce the sperm or egg, it could make the law less discriminatory.

For example, a Mississippi judge ruled last month that a same-sex divorcee did not have legal rights to the child she helped to raise because she wasn’t the biological mother.

This could all change with improved technology.

Recent tests with stem cells have produced working mice sperm.

Other scientists have injected human cells into the testicles of mice that produced cells that looked like sperm, but could not fertilise eggs.

The natural process of creating sperm and eggs is known as meoisis.

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This process only takes 13 days with mice, but can take up to eight weeks with humans.

Surani said the cells he and his colleagues have tested have undergone parts of this process, The Guardian has reported.

• Dec 01

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