IVG will essentially simplify IVF for women. They will not have to get hormonal injections, and they will not need a surgical procedure. Instead, the women in question would simply provide a cell from the inside of their cheek or from their skin. The IVF process would thus become more of a laboratory procedure than a clinical one.

The only procedure the woman in question would have to undergo is the placement of an embryo into the uterus. That cannot be avoided, of course, until such time that we can grow embryos outside the womb. This, too, is under discussion, in a separate area of science, even as we speak.

Q. The report summarizes a discussion on the social, ethical and legal implications of IVG. The panel was moderated by I. Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law School who is studying the intersection of bioethics and law, with whom you frequently collaborate. Can you share some of the big takeaways?

In the normal IVF process, you retrieve 10, maybe 14 eggs. But in IVG, you can create essentially an unlimited number of eggs. There is the potential to create many more human embryos, for research or clinical use, than current assisted reproductive technologies. Discussions and oversight will be required to address the implications of increased embryo selection and the challenge of embryo disposition.

Another possibility that was considered is the case of women who, for one reason or another, are born without ovaries or are born with ovaries that are non-functional. People with Turner Syndrome, for example, are born with ovaries, but their chromosomal makeup does not permit them to create normal eggs. In theory, you could provide these women with eggs, but you would also have to do some genetic engineering to address their genetic makeup. And the idea that we could do this for women without ovaries is now beginning to take off in all kinds of unexpected directions.

For example, for the first time in human history, it may become possible for same-sex couples to be the genetic parents of children. Nature Magazine in March reported a technology that involved, among other things, IVG used in the creation of a rodent with two so-called fathers. So we can imagine a situation where two males could actually become the genetic parents of a child, although they would still require a surrogate to carry the pregnancy. But in the case of two women who also are unable to become the genetic parents of an offspring, that could also become possible. And by the nature of their biology, one of them could carry the fetus. The applications of IVG are already taking off in directions that would have been thought of as unworkable as recently as five or 10 years ago.

Q: What do you hope will be the impact of the report?

It's all about disseminating knowledge and insights. The National Academy of Medicine accomplished several things: It put together the first significant multidisciplinary meeting that dealt with the idea of IVG. Secondly, the academy lent its weight to the need for scientific and social discussions about this concept now. And thirdly, they exposed the concept to a much larger number of people that otherwise would have never heard of IVG, and would have been surprised and unprepared when it finally becomes a reality.

I work in the reproductive arena, and while I have given lectures on the subject in multiple contexts, I'm cognizant of the fact that many of my colleagues are not familiar with IVG. It's not taught in medical school; it's not widely taught in residency or fellowship training programs. And so young physicians on the whole still are not quite familiar with this concept.

I think that prior to this time, it was really up to people who read the literature and saw the potential and gave lectures and so forth to disseminate insights. But when you have an organization like the National Academy of Medicine throw its weight behind the need to discuss something like this, it's a sea change. It really takes a concept and puts it front and center and turns it from a theoretical preoccupation that is happening in some labs in a different country to something that will, at some point, need to be reckoned with by all medical providers across multiple fields.

This meeting was dedicated to reproduction, but if one listened carefully, one could deduce what we’ve discussed here, which is that this technology could be applied to other fields of medicine. And as such, this makes it a very powerful technology. It's medicine at its very core.

While the technology isn’t there yet, it was time for the scientific public and the public at large to get a sense of the possible.