“100% lab kids in five years. Japanese researchers on the verge of creating human eggs and sperm that can be grown in an artificial womb”: Parents are no longer needed – the Japanese promise that soon children can be made from a hair or a drop of blood, and the gender of the parents will no longer be important.

“Growing human babies from scratch in the lab could be possible in just five years thanks to a new breakthrough. Researchers in Japan are on the cusp of creating human eggs and sperm cells from scratch in the lab, which will then be developed in an artificial womb. Professor Katsuhiko Hayashi of Kyushu University, who has already figured out the process in mice, thinks he only needs five years to replicate the result in humans. But there are ethical issues, because then women of any age will be able to have children. Parents may also want to give their child certain traits using gene editing. Dr. Hayashi and his team also recently created seven mice with two male biological parents. Scientists will be able to generate sperm and eggs for infertile people, for example, from one of their blood cells. But there are still a lot of ethical, legal and security issues. So, it will be possible to steal the DNA of another person, taking his strand of hair, and make children without his consent.