Today we bring news that seems to come from the future and that may be the beginning of great advances in medicine. A team of American researchers has managed to create an "artificial ovary" in which the oocytes can develop.
The oocytes are the female germ cells that are in the process of becoming a mature ovum. This artificial ovary following a process similar to that of the women's organic ovaries, which could lead to the creation of the first fully functional artificial organ.
It's a little scary, and it reminds me of futuristic movies in which babies are "created" from nowhere, in nests more or less similar to this artificial ovary.
However, the idea is that the ovary will serve to better understand female fertility and to preserve the fertility of women undergoing certain treatments, such as chemotherapy.
This would be done by extracting the still immature ovules from the organism and freezing them before the start of chemotherapy or radiation, to make them mature later outside the patient in the artificial ovary.
It is thus intended to know fundamental questions about how a healthy ovary works, or find out how certain problems, such as exposure to toxins or other chemicals, can affect the maturation and health of the ovules.
Researchers at Brown University and the Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island in the United States are already using the laboratory ovary. to mature human eggs, as published by the University in a statement.
What has allowed an artificial ovary to become functional tissue, rather than just a mere cell culture, has been the combination of three types of cells in a structure similar to that of women's ovaries.
A complex and controversial creation that will undoubtedly speak, that of this first artificial ovary capable of receiving and maturing eggs.
