ARTIFICIAL OVARIES? Oh, come on!

Linda and Carolyn, 1951

I can't resist using this picture over and over again

Do you know how 3-D printing works?  Well, if you don’t, tough luck – I’m not about to explain it.  My ignorance of the nuts and bolts of 3-D printing is profound.  All I think I know is that it is possible to store information about some object in a computer, and for that computer then to guide a machine that squirts out some kind of malleable substance in such a way as to duplicate the original object.  If you know more than that, don’t laugh.  I know more Egyptology than you do.

I do find this NIH article mind-blowing:

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/making-artificial-ovaries

As you will see if you click on this link, it is possible to construct ARTIFICIAL OVARIES (!) – ones that actually work.  It turns out that an ovary is merely a scaffolding designed to hold and protect things called ovarian follicles, each of which contains a blob of protoplasm which, when called into action, develops into an egg.  One egg is produced each menstrual cycle.  Somewhere I read that your average ovary contains about 400,000 such follicles.  That, in passing, amounts to a hell of a lot of menstrual cycles.

So, anyway, this team from Northwestern University took some mice, removed their ovaries, then installed 3-D printed artificial ovaries (made of what?), seeded these ersatz ovaries with mouse follicles, and turned the little boy mice loose on them.  Sure enough, several later gave birth.  (Did you know that baby mice are called “pups”?)

The Northwestern team plans to experiment with larger animals, and speculates that their work may be helpful to humans someday.

I am a bit skeptical, however.  It appears that the ovarian follicles, not the ovary itself,  are the crux of the matter.  So, say a woman has her ovaries removed for whatever reason, and then later wants to conceive.  They may be able to build her several crackerjack ovaries using 3-D printing, but where are the follicles going to come from?  No doubt they have thought of this and will tell us in due time.