US scientists have, for the first time, made early-stage human embryos by manipulating DNA taken from people’s skin cells and then fertilising it with sperm, writes BBC.

“The technique could overcome infertility due to old age or disease, by using almost any cell in the body as the starting point for life. It could even allow same-sex couples to have a genetically related child.

The method requires significant refinement - which could take a decade - before a fertility clinic could even consider using it. Experts said it was an impressive breakthrough, but there needed to be an open discussion with the public about what science was making possible.

Reproduction used to be a simple story of man’s sperm meets woman’s egg. They fuse to make an embryo, and nine months later a baby is born. Now scientists are changing the rules. This latest experiment starts with human skin.

The Oregon Health and Science University research team’s technique takes the nucleus – which houses a copy of the entire genetic code needed to build the body – out of a skin cell. This is then placed inside a donor egg that has been stripped of its genetic instructions.

So far, the technique is like the one used to create Dolly the Sheep – the world’s first cloned mammal – born back in 1996”.