Berkeley Genomics Project @BerkeleyGenomic

Announcement of very cool research by Conception Bio, combining two decades of work from the field: They took human iPSCs through germline development, producing mini-ovarian organoids with follicles containing primary oocyte-like cells entering meiosis--all iPSC-derived. A remaining barrier to full in vitro oogenesis is progressing past the pachytene stage of meiosis I, to form crossovers and actually undergo meiosis. Another major task will be validating the epigenomic competence of in vitro-derived oocytes to form a healthy embryo. x.com/mattkrisiloff/…

Matt Krisiloff @mattkrisiloff

5 days ago

I’m so excited to share this update on @Conception – We’ve generated the first early human eggs derived from stem cells. This is a big deal -- the potential to redefine fertility is real.

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@Grimezsz In addition to Ovelle (a good approach IMO), there is e184.com, paternabio.com (spermatogenesis), conception.bio, @ivynatal .

A few reasons I'm aware of (non-exhaustive): * Meiosis (crossing over chromosomes and then segregating to form gametes with 23 rather than 46 chromosomes) is a complicated mechanically difficult process. It ONLY happens in gametogenesis, nowhere else. * Oocytes need the right epigenetic imprints, and it's not known how to get cells to generate those imprints. Without those imprints, the resulting embryo would probably develop very unhealthily (e.g. overgrown). * In general, natural human gametogenesis is not fully understood because many of the important events happen in fetal or early childhood development; data is sparse (you only get it under tragic circumstances).

@Grimezsz @mudscryer The pic is taken by Steve; the company is Ovelle Bio ovelle.bio. @OvelleBio

@HellenicVibes @Grimezsz @Grimezsz Happy to put you in touch if serious. Reach out: tsvi[at]berkeleygenomics[dot]org

@billionsmustliv We will likely upload most talks, yeah. May take quite a while. We don't have other events scheduled at the moment. We'll most likely do another Reproductive Frontiers next year at a similar time of year.

Deep reprotech seems to be emerging. Come learn & build at Reproductive Frontiers 2026, June 16-18, Berkeley. Tickets⬇️

See the full schedule here: reproductivefrontiers.org Register at: reproductivefrontiers.org/register

@PaternaBio @apastusz See the news article here: wired.com/story/startup-… See the full schedule here: reproductivefrontiers.org Register at: reproductivefrontiers.org/register Financial aid is available for students. Hope to see you there!

In April, a startup stated they'd coaxed spermatogonia to develop into normal-looking sperm. If these sperm are genetically & epigenetically high-quality, this is a breakthrough. Paterna @PaternaBio CEO Dr. Alex Pastuszak @apastusz will speak at Reproductive Frontiers. Tickets⬇️

@PaolaAmato @kanzure I certainly don't know, but a guess: Since the editors would only reach some tissues, it feels less like "changing a person", so less fraught; and maybe it doesn't reach the germline, so less "ripple effects".

@GeneSmi96946389 Yes, that's quite plausible. So then it's exactly 1 round of editing, which would be difficult to make impactful beyond mono/oligogenics.

Embryo editing is the most archetypal "active" reprogenetic method (the "non-active" method being preimplantation genetic testing). It's concrete and understandable, in outline. But it's probably not actually very important, in the grand scheme of things. Embryo editing is quite difficult. Yes, the research on precision editing is underpursued due to societal/ethical concerns that are legitimate but ultimately overemphasized, and yes this implies directionally that the research might be easier than expected. But the research is just difficult. Or to put it another way, the approach is just not that feasible. If you're wanting to do strong reprogenetics, and you're using gene editors, you're going to need to make hundreds of edits. Mosaicism means live validation is not feasible, so you'd need super-duper-high-precision editing, which doesn't exist. More important approaches involve operating on stem cells (e.g. iterated editing with validation; chromosome selection; iterated meiotic selection), which is then followed by epigenomic corrected to produce gametes / a zygote. (Or, maybe, chromosome selection on epigenomically correct chromosomes from sperm or embryos.) These methods would be very powerful and very safe. They are also probably easier than safe very-multiplex embryo editing, as well as more live verifiable. Embryo editing has a place. Before other methods are available, embryo editing could offer a good risk/reward tradeoff for parents who cannot naturally get many or any embryos that don't have some very harmful single variant. If nothing else--even if embryo editing cannot actually be made safe enough at all--the venture gives an opportunity to work out what sort of validation is required for safety for active reprogenetics methods. But it's not a top priority for getting to strong safe reprogenetics.

See the full schedule here: reproductivefrontiers.org Register at: reproductivefrontiers.org/register Financial aid is available for students. Hope to see you there!

Actually using gene editing for reprogenetics has big obstacles. How to make many edits? How to make them precisely? Dr. Eriona Hysolli, former lead of the project at Colossal to de-extinct woolly mammoths & now stealth founder, will speak at ReproFro on her work. Tickets⬇️

🧠 Is creativity mostly just high intelligence? A new twin study in @ICAJournal says no. There’s a large genetically independent component. @timothycbates analyzed intelligence test scores and creativity data in three domains: business, military, politics/leadership). Key findings: ➡️Creative achievement is highly heritable (h² ≈ .56), shared environment ≈ 0 ➡️Latent creativity and general intelligence are genetically independent. ➡️g explains only ~10% of the genetic variance in creative achievement These findings support a hybrid view: g helps in many domains, but creativity has substantial unique genetic architecture. As Bates explains, "the genetic architecture of real-world creative achievement is not merely a downstream consequence of general intelligence but reflects a separate, heritable system that operates across artistic, scientific, and enterprising domains" (p. 6). Read the full open-access paper: doi.org/10.65550/001c.…

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See the full schedule here: reproductivefrontiers.org Register at: reproductivefrontiers.org/register Financial aid is available for students. Hope to see you there!

How do you turn stem cells into eggs? Easy: first you turn them into primordial germ cell-like cells, then you turn the PGCLCs into eggs! Just kidding, that's a decades-long scientific challenge. Prof. Katsuhiko Hayashi will speak on his groundbreaking IVG work. Tickets⬇️

See the full schedule here: reproductivefrontiers.org Register at: reproductivefrontiers.org/register Financial aid is available for students. Hope to see you there!

Often, opinions on reprogenetics collapse to "for" or "against". In her outstanding career in law & bioethics, e.g. co-chairing the 2017 NASEM germline editing report, Prof. R. Alta Charo has been asking another question: How do we do this well? Hear her at ReproFro. Tickets⬇️