A recent breakthrough has advanced the chance for two partners of the same sex to have a baby.

Researchers from Cambridge University have shown for the first time that it is possible to make human egg and sperm cells using skin from two adults of the same sex.

The finding could lead to a baby being made in a dish from the skin cells of two adults of the same sex.

It is exciting news for couples who typically have to look to surrogacy as a way of producing their own offspring.

The scientists used stem cell lines from embryos as well as from the skin of five different adults.

Ten different donor sources have been used so far and new germ-cell lines have been created from all of them, researchers said.

A gene called SOX1 has turned out to be critical in the process of “reprogramming” human cells, according to a reports in British newspapers.

The details of the technique will be published in the journal Cell.