Artificial Wombs

[David Morris]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-000005313jan21.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dcomment%2Dopinions

By JEREMY RIFKIN, who is the author of "The Biotech Century" (Tarcher 
Putnam, 1998), is the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in 
Washington, D.C.

[...]
Several weeks ago, a team of Cornell University scientists announced that it 
had succeeded in creating an artificial womb lining using a cocktail of 
drugs and hormones.

The goal of the research, led by Dr. Hung Chiung Liu of the Center for 
Reproductive Medicine and Infertility, is to help infertile couples by 
creating an entire womb that could be transplanted into a woman.

Halfway around the world, working in a small research laboratory at 
Juntendou University in Tokyo, Yosinori Kuwabara and his colleagues are 
developing the first operational artificial womb--a clear plastic tank the 
size of a bread basket filled with body-temperature amniotic fluid.

For the past several years, Kuwabara and his team have kept goat fetuses 
growing for up to 10 days in this womb by connecting the goats' umbilical 
cords to machines that serve as a placenta, pumping in blood, oxygen and 
nutrients and disposing waste products.

While the plastic womb is still only in development, Kuwabara predicts that 
a fully functioning artificial womb capable of gestating a human fetus may 
be a reality in less than six years.

Other scientists say we will probably see the mass use of artificial wombs 
by the time today's babies become parents.


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