Tag: new technology

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Scientists Create Fertile Eggs from Mouse Stem Cells

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Scientists in Japan report they have created eggs from stem cells in a mammal for the first time. And the researchers went on to breed healthy offspring from the eggs they created.

While the experiments involved mice, the work is being met with excitement — and questions — about doing the same thing for humans someday.

“Wow. That’s my general reaction,” said Hank Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford University who studies stem-cell science. “Repairing hearts, repairing brains, repairing kidneys, that’s all good and important, and we’d all love to be able to do that. But this involves making the next generation.” Read full article.

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New Discovery to Improve Success Rates of IVF

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Researchers from the University of Otago, Christchurch, are collaborating with clinicians at Fertility Associates in Christchurch to develop a test to significantly improve the success rate for in vitro fertilisations implantations.

Christchurch obstetrics and gynaecology researcher, Dr Gloria Evans, has just published a paper in the international journal Fertility and Sterility which shows positive results for a test to determine the optimal time to implant a fertilised embryo through IVF. Read full article.

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Chinese Hospital Introduces Sperm Extractor

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A hospital in China is introducing a sperm extractor to help men who have infertility problems.

The hands-free device has an adaptable massager that can be adjusted according to the person’s height. A website that’s selling the machine for $2,800 says “it can give patients very comfortable feeling.” Read full article.

 

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Sperm Sequencing Could Help Fight Infertility

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Not all sperm are created equal. The first genetic comparison of individual sperm cells has revealed just how diverse they can be. The technology used to study these tiny cells might also be used to study cancer and allow doctors to screen eggs for in vitro fertilisation.

To investigate how much variety there is in one man’s sperm, Stephen Quake, Jianbin Wang and their colleagues at Stanford University in California compared sperm cells from a single semen sample.

Analysing the genes of individual cells is notoriously tricky, though. “It’s hard to express how difficult single cell experiments are,” says Adam Auton at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. To perform genetic sequencing, you need to amplify, or make lots of copies of the genes within a cell to have enough to analyse. The compounds needed for amplification produce chemical by-products that can make the analysis more difficult.

Read full article.

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FDA Approves Drug to Reduce Risk of HIV

ASRM News and Research

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Truvada (emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate), the first drug approved to reduce the risk of HIV infection in uninfected individuals who are at high risk of HIV infection and who may engage in sexual activity with HIV-infected partners. Truvada, taken daily, is to be used for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in combination with safer sex practices to reduce the risk of sexually-acquired HIV infection in adults at high risk.

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UK Surgeons Launch Womb Transplant Charity

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A charity has been launched to raise money for research that could allow the first womb transplants in the UK.

Uterine Transplantation UK was set up by a team of British surgeons who say they need £500,000 to finish testing the procedure. Only after tests in animals have been completed will they be able to apply for ethics permission to perform the surgery in patients.

Womb transplantation offers an alternative to surrogacy or adoption for thousands of women who are either born without a womb or have theirs removed due to birthing complications, cancer or other diseases.

A previous attempt at this surgery in 2000 failed because of a problem in the blood supply to the transplanted uterus. However, several improvements to the technique have been made and last August a 21-year old woman in Turkey became the first successful recipient of a womb transplant.

‘We are confident, especially with a transplant abroad being carried out with the same methodology that we have recommended that within two years or so, given enough funding, we can begin helping women in the UK’, said Mr Richard Smith, a consultant gynaecologist from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the Lister Hospital.

Read full article.

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Eye Precursor and Tiny Liver Grown from Stem Cells

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Human embryonic stem cells (ES cells) have, for the first time, been used to grow a crucial part of the eye, a paper in Cell Stem Cell reports. It is hoped that in the future transplantation of such tissue could help visually impaired people recover their sight.

Scientists working at the RIKEN Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, managed to encourage human ES cells to self-organise into a three-dimensional and multi-layered human eye precursors, called an optic cup. The cup, just over half a millimetre in diameter, contained the important light-sensitive rod and cone cells – called photoreceptors – on its inner surface, as well as retinal cells in its outer wall.

As Professor Austin Smith, director of the Centre for Stem Cell Research in Cambridge, UK, who was not involved in the study, told Nature: ‘The morphology [of the optic cup] is a truly extraordinary thing’. But only very recently have researchers been able to grow stem cells in three dimensions rather than as two-dimensional sheets in a dish. The optic cup self-assembled into its complicated three-dimensional shape without any direction, morphologically speaking, from the scientists.

Read full article.

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New Fertility Microscope Allows Parents to Watch Baby from Conception

ASRM News and Research

A sophisticated new microscope makes it possible for fertility doctors to monitor the developing fertilized egg continuously for up to five days.  It means any abnormal changes can be spotted and the egg discarded so only the best quality ones with the best chance of creating a healthy pregnancy are transferred to the womb.

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Lab-Grown Egg Cells Could Be ‘Fertilized Within the Year’ if License Is Granted

ASRM News and Research

Researchers are now intending to seek permission from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to fertilize the eggs in order to test whether they are viable. Should such a study be successful, it would represent a breakthrough in fertility research and could open the door to greatly enhanced fertility for many women.

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Should Women Freeze Ovarian Tissue To Have Babies Later In Life?

ASRM News and Research

A doctor at an infertility clinic has performed “ovary transplants” on a small number of infertile women who have gone on to have healthy babies. Though the procedure sounds futuristic, it’s definitely possible (it freezes a piece of ovary, not the whole organ), and not so bizarre as the other suggestion in his new study: That the procedure might help women avoid menopause altogether. Before you ask your doctor to toss a piece of your ovary in the freezer, know that there are many caveats, and it’s not likely to be used as a method for having babies very late in life, or to dodge the symptoms of menopause altogether.