Alabama legislators pass bill to protect IVF
Alabama's legislature has passed a new law to protect fertility clinics from criminal charges following the State Supreme Court's ruling that embryos created through IVF are considered children...
Melinda Van Kerckvoorde
Melinda Van Kerckvoorde is a Volunteer Writer at BioNews. She is an Associate Consultant at Scendea, supporting clients in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry with regulatory submissions to European and US agencies. Melinda completed her BSc in Biomedicine at Lancaster University and used computational models to understand embryo size regulation during her MPhil in Developmental Biology at the University of Cambridge. She then joined Dr Marta Shahbazi's lab at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology as an intern to study aneuploidy in human embryos. Now, she is looking for a new challenge to spin out more fertility research from labs into the real world and encourage reproductive health awareness.
BioNews Articles by Melinda Van Kerckvoorde
Lab technician at Dutch clinic accused of using own sperm
A worker at a fertility clinic in the Netherlands substituted his own sperm in patient treatments, resulting in at least 11 children...
Image by K Hardy via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human embryo at the blastocyst stage (about six days after fertilisation) 'hatching' out of the zona pellucida.
Fate of 28-day embryo research proposal remains unclear following Dutch election
Further political debate on whether embryo research should be extended to a 28-day limit may be postponed following the unforeseen far right win during last week's Dutch national election…
Image by K Hardy via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human embryo at the blastocyst stage (about six days after fertilisation) 'hatching' out of the zona pellucida.
Health Council of the Netherlands recommends doubling the 14-day limit on embryo research
The Health Council of the Netherlands has recommended that the 14-day rule for embryo research should be extended to a 28-day rule, as this could yield knowledge that helps to prevent developmental diseases and treat infertility...
HFEA launches #WhoIsMyDonor campaign
A new campaign to raise awareness of donor conception has been launched by the UK's fertility regulator Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority as changes to UK donor anonymity law come into effect in October...
Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false colour).
Creation of a complete day 14 human stem-cell-based embryo model
The most complete human embryo model to date has been created, mimicking all of the key structures that emerge in the early embryo by day 14 of development...
France announces more sperm and egg banks to meet demand
The French health ministry has earmarked funding for more sperm and egg banks, due to unprecedented demand from women following a law change two years ago...
Dutch court orders sperm donor to request clinics destroy sperm
A prolific sperm donor who claims to have fathered more than 500 children has been banned from making further donations, and warned that he will face significant fines if he fails to comply, by the district court in The Hague, the Netherlands...
Dutch charity seeks destruction of prolific donor's sperm
A Dutch charity representing donor-conceived children has launched a civil legal case against a prolific sperm donor who claims to have fathered over 500 children...
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
IVF does not impact cardiometabolic health of offspring
An international multi-cohort study shows that people conceived using IVF and ICSI have no significant differences in cardiometabolic health to naturally conceived children...