Scientists have developed an artificial uterus and created a baby! “We want to make a universal system”

A team of scientists from Japan has developed an “artificial womb” for incubating shark embryos, making significant progress at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Motobu.
This innovative system enabled the incubation of shark embryos in 355 days, surpassing the previous record of 160 days.

Sharks are particularly vulnerable at birth due to the high salinity of the seawater, which is a particular problem for sharks that give birth to live litters, known as “live sharks”, compared to those that lay eggs. Scientists have developed an artificial uterine fluid that mimics shark blood plasma to overcome this problem.

Through many experiments, they managed to grow several embryos from three to 15 centimeters, which is their natural size at birth and a size that means they can more easily survive the beginning of their lives.

They want more

Although only three of the 33 embryos reached full size, the results are still impressive. Those three embryos were successfully delivered in April 2023. After birth, the pups were fed ground mackerel and shrimp and behaved like any other young shark.

The adults now live at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, where they are indistinguishable from their natural-born peers, and Haiku Magazine reports that the other sharks are indistinguishable from the “new” individuals from their natural-born counterparts.

Taketeru Tomita, the lead researcher, said they wanted to expand the system to include more shark species in order to develop more universal systems that could be applied to the diversity of shark reproductive systems.

“In our aquarium, as well as in the outside world for conservation, we cannot choose the species we receive. Shark reproductive systems are very diverse and I think our system can only be applied to about half of live birth sharks. We would like to develop more universal systems,” he concluded.