Young Women’s Ovary Stem Cells are Capable of Producing New Eggs

March 05, 2012

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Young Women’s Ovary Stem Cells are Capable of Producing New Eggs

Doctors have been of the opinion – ‘the women were born with all the eggs they will ever have’ – for the last 60 years. However, Harvard scientists are challenging this dogma on the basis of the discovery made by them. As per their discovery, they claim that the ovaries of young women harbour especial and seldom found stem cells capable of producing new eggs.

If the reports of Sunday are to be believed, the doctors may harness those stem cells to better treat the women with infertility due to diseases or simply because they are growing older to conceive.

“Our current views of ovarian aging are incomplete. There’s much more to the story than simply the trickling away of a fixed pool of eggs,” said Jonathan Tilly, lead researcher of Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital. Jonathan Tilly has been searching these very rare stem cells in a series of controversial studies for a long period of time. However, it is to be noticed that the previous work of Tilly drew severe scepticism and has led independent experts to urge caution about the latest findings.

Surprisingly, a leading critic said that these types of research may support in getting rid of some of the enduring secrecy surrounding the human egg and its formation as well as maturation along with other related queries. “This is going to spark renewed interest, and more than anything else it’s giving us some new directions to work in,” said Mr. David Albertini, Director of the University of Kansas’ Center for Reproductive Sciences. Although he has lot of questions about the latest work and findings, he is less sceptical about it.

Over the period of time, Scientists have taught that the every female mammal is born with limited supply of egg cells known as ooctyes, which comes to a stop in middle age. The Mass General’s reproductive biology director, Tilly attempted to challenge that notion in the year 2004 by reporting that the ovaries of adult mice harbour some sort of egg-producing stem cells. Moreover, Tilly recently found that the similar findings of rare cells in mice have been discovered in a lab in China and another lab in the U.S.