Researchers used eggs from young donors to repair damaged eggs of older women in order to increase their chances of fertilisation. They have not yet used the eggs to produce babies, but they have injected them with sperm to produce an early stage embryo in the laboratory. While the move breathes new life into "old eggs" and could also remove genetic illnesses, it is likely to provoke an ethical storm as critics believe it could lead to hybrid or genetically modified children.
IVF often fails in older women because there are abnormalities in the outside of their eggs, known as cytoplasm, which surrounds the nucleus. The team in Japan believes one way around the problem would be too implant the healthy nucleus - which contains most of the information to produce a baby - into the cytoplasm of a donor, usually a younger mother. Telegraph
Editor: This experimentation demonstrates the immorality of a lot of fertility research. In the process, embryos are allowed to form but not to "produce babies."
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