Scientists in Shanghai create mice without use of sperm

Sperm banks in China are seeing an increase in the number of visits by infertile couples. After modifying one cell by removing two genes, they injected the cell into another egg as part of artificial fertilization process. They are healthy and show no difference in development and fertility from the ones that are naturally conceived," said Zhong Cuiqing, one of the researchers in the team led by Li Jinsong from the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, a branch of Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Zhong said the success rate can be called surprisingly high as the rate of the regular artificial fertilization that involves an egg and sperm-derived haploid cell on mice is between 20 and 30 percent. Liu Ping, deputy director of the fertility center of Peking University Third Hospital, said it will take pretty detailed discussions about whether to apply an assisted reproductive technology to humans both technically and ethically, and she believes such innovation will not bring negative effects on the human society.