What if human eggs could be made outside the body, safely, reliably, and at scale?
00:00 - Introduction to Merrick Smela and IVG technology
01:28 - Merrick’s scientific background and career path
03:07 - Inspiration from early stem cell research and career milestones
09:00 - How transcription factors and meiosis are driven in vitro
15:00 - Screening strategies for high-fidelity egg development
20:00 - Diversity and variability in high-throughput cell screening
27:32 - Commercialization and scaling of stem cell reprogramming
33:34 - Ensuring egg functionality and safety ahead of clinical trials
36:03 - Timeline for in vitro conception and embryo development
41:14 - Safety protocols including non-human primate studies
47:15 - Societal causes for declining fertility and OVEL’s potential impact
48:46 - Supporting older donors and age-related reproductive technology
50:52 - Opportunities for gay men and reproductive diversity
53:53 - Ethical and regulatory landscape for germline modifications
1:02:24 - How AI and machine learning accelerate research
1:05:22 - Science fiction’s influence on ethical biotech development
1:08:48 - Maintaining work-life balance amid groundbreaking research
1:12:25 - Advice for young scientists tackling high-impact problems
In this episode of Galaxy Balance, Cory Smith is joined by Merrick Smela, a scientist and entrepreneur working at the frontier of human reproduction. Merrick’s work focuses on in vitro gametogenesis (IVG): generating functional human eggs from stem cells as a potential next step beyond IVF.
The conversation explores how eggs develop, why faithfully reproducing meiosis and epigenetic programming is one of the hardest challenges in biology, and how large-scale screening, single-cell genomics, and microscopy are being used to engineer developmental processes that normal occur deep inside the body.
Merrick also shares the origin story and vision behind Ovelle, a biotech company aiming to expand reproductive options for people facing infertility. They discuss safety, regulation, cost, non-human primate validation, embryo quality control, and why IVG may eventually be more accessible and scalable than current fertility treatments.
Zooming out, the episode tackles ethical questions around reproduction, selection versus editing, the role of AI in biology, and how science fiction shapes, and sometimes distorts, how society imagines the future or human reproduction.
This is a deep dive into one of the most consequential technologies on the horizon: the ability to engineer human fertility itself.
