'How big of a deal it is for the world? I think it's going to be pretty big,' says Seres, who has a background in in vitro fertilization. Transgender couples could also use IVG to have biologically related babies. IVG could also create sperm for lesbian couples, allowing them to have babies with genes from both women.

' really opens the door, if you can create eggs, to be able to help people have children that otherwise don't have options right now.'

'Basically, we're trying to turn a type of stem cell called an induced pluripotent stem cell into a human egg,' Krisiloff says. 'It's really exciting to be working on a technology that can change the lives of millions of humans.'Ĭonception is trying to accelerate, and eventually commercialize, a field of biomedical research known as in vitro gametogenesis (IVG). 'I personally think what we're doing will probably change many aspects of society as we know it,' says Hurtado, the company's chief scientific officer. 'So let me find them real quick,' says Krisiloff as he turns to look for his co-founders, Pablo Hurtado and Bianka Seres, so they can explain Conception's mission. Nice to meet you,' says one of the founders of Conception, a biotech startup that is trying to do something audacious: revolutionize the way humans reproduce. On a cloudy day on a gritty side street near the shore of San Francisco Bay, a young man answers the door at a low concrete building. Conception's chief scientific officer, Pablo Hurtado, examines very early primordial germ cells under a microscope in a company lab in Berkeley, California.īERKELEY, CALIF.

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