A Mouse With Two Dads: The First Mice To Be Created From Two Fathers

WTH?

Abolishing Ourselves: Anyone who doubts that the abolition of man is a present-day reality need only look at the British headlines from the past few weeks. The House of Commons approved bills that allow for assisted killing and for late-term abortion…. While the headlines were dominated by this push to eliminate the most vulnerable members of British society, an article at Popular Mechanics was perhaps even more significant. Earlier this year, Yanchang Wei at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China successfully produced mouse embryos via androgenesis—reproduction by two fathers. These two phenomena—the assumption of power over who lives and who dies, and the approaching era of the mechanical manipulation of the creation of human life—bring the question of what it means to be human into focus…. Iceland provides a good example. It decided some years ago that being human does not include people with Down syndrome. They are now almost all eliminated before leaving the birth canal. The same looks to be true in the U.K. for babies in the womb that might pose an emotional problem to the mother. They are not human either (Carl Trueman, First Things).

Scientists Edited Sperm to Bypass an Egg. The Result? A Mouse With Two Dads.

Androgenesis may not naturally occur in mammals, but through gene editing, all things are possible.

By Elizabeth Rayne, Popular Mechanics,  Jun 26, 2025:

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• The first mice to be created from two fathers, a phenomenon known as androgenesis, have now produced healthy offspring for the first time.
• Researchers implanted two sperm in an egg with its nucleus removed and modified the sperm with epigenome editing, turning certain genes on and off.
• This process carries a high risk, but it could be used for human reproduction and saving endangered species in the future.

Millions of years of evolution have determined how mammals reproduce, but if something doesn’t occur in nature, it is not necessarily impossible. It could still be achieved in a lab.

Mammalian reproduction usually needs one sperm and one oocyte (egg) to create a zygote that develops in the womb until it becomes a new organism. Embryogenesis and fetal development in mice and humans are similar, which is why mice are often used as prototypes for human experiments. Also like humans, mice, at least on their own, cannot create a viable zygote out of two eggs or two sperm. That is where genetic intervention comes in.

Continued….