ANSWER: Human Eggs
Explanation:
Scientists have discovered a way to regenerate human eggs using the mother’s genetic material that normally goes waste - This breakthrough has helped women of advanced maternal age struggling with infertility
- The waste DNA is from small cells called polar bodies that form off eggs and contain the same genetic material found in the egg nucleus of the woman
- Till now, polar bodies have never been seen as useful for generation of human eggs for fertility treatments
- Scientists successfully transplanted a polar body from the woman’s developing oocyte which is the cellular beginning of the embryo into the cytoplasm of the donor oocyte stripped off its nucleus
- By rescuing the polar bodies that would otherwise bud off the developing oocyte, researchers were able to form additional oocytes genetically related to the mother via nuclear transfer
- When fertilised with the sperm, these oocytes grow into viable embryos
- None of the embryos were implanted to carry out actual pregnancy
- Normally, polar bodies disintegrate and disappear through egg development
- The aim is to recycle them by doubling the number of patient eggs available for in-vitro fertilisation
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