Idk if this makes sense.
Obviously not via sexual reproduction but could a person’s genetic parents be of the same sex and that person be genetically indistinguishable from the rest of the population?
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There’s an in development technology called in vitro gametogenesis (IVG) that would allow same sex couples as well as infertile people to have biological children. It’s been in the works for over a decade and as far as I am aware has not yet been tested on humans.
For two females, you would have to implant one egg’s DNA into a sperm whose DNA was “stripped out” And for two males, the same but transferred into an egg. I’d say it could be done in the near future with the progress we did with CRISPR in the last decade, for instance.
Hand waving away a lot of the developmental process, you could make a male or female offspring from 2 males or a female offspring from 2 females that would be indistinguishable from the variety in the normal population.
The obvious solution would be to just clone the parent.
Any hypothetical attempt to simulate recombination would produce a genetic clone at best—but more likely (even if you overcame the practical issues), you’d end up replacing some of the unique material on one half of each chromosome with a copy of the genes on the other half (with a corresponding increase in the risk of genetic defects).
Yeah cloning isn’t really what I’m asking about. Interested in knowing if you can make offspring from two same sex parent cells that have similar genetic makeup/diversity to offspring with 2 different sex parent cells
I know—I’m just saying that any other theoretical solution would always be worse than cloning, because you’d lose genetic information.
Edit: See Isodisomy for details.
Under ideal conditions, I don’t see how this would lose any more genetic information than sexual reproduction with parents of the opposite sex. The problems you’re referring to seem to be more of an issue if two gametes were supplied by a single parent.
Not a biologist, but I’m convinced it’s possible.
With induced pluripotent stemcells (stemcells made from nearly any cell of the body which can grow into anything too), we’ll find a way to make an egg from a man using any cells he provides. Then all you need is the other male partner’s sperm and a donor womb. Btw, the womb won’t have to be within a woman - artificial wombs are being researched.
Someone already posted the 3 parent technique. So it is at least already partially possible.
Since males have the XY chromosomes, they should be able to (theoretically) have female (XX) and male (XY) offspring. With advanced microbiology and artificial wombs, there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll reach that point before the end of the century.
