Experts: women have an unlimited supply of eggs
WOMEN could have the opportunity to give birth using their own eggs later in life, after the discovery by scientists that they possess a potentially unlimited supply of them.
Stem cells in ovaries can generate into immature eggs in the laboratory, an American team found. The prevailing wisdom has been that women have a finite number of eggs that diminish in number and quality until the menopause.
British experts said the findings, published in the journal 'Nature Medicine', "rewrite the rule book" on this point and amounted to a potentially landmark piece of research.
The academics, led by Dr Jonathan Tilly of Massachusetts General Hospital, extracted human stem cells that could become immature eggs because all carry a unique protein called DDX4. (© Daily Telegraph, London)