Documentary Review: Our Father
'I walk around, and I could be related to anyone' says Jacoba Ballard, a donor-conceived adult, of her neighbourhood in Indianapolis...
Susan Tranfield-Thomas
BioNews Articles by Susan Tranfield-Thomas
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
TV and Video Review: Revisiting Bourn Hall and its IVF Pioneers
Such was the excitement and anticipation around the pioneering procedure of IVF and the work of embryologist Professor Sir Robert Edwards, gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe and embryologist and nurse Jean Purdy, that Louise Brown's birth was treated as a sensational scientific advance in 1978…
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
Book Review: Fertility Issues
Fertility Issues is one of a series of educational booklets from Independence Educational Publishers, aimed at children aged over 11 in key stages 3, 4, and above, which aims to present and explore contemporary social issues in an unbiased way...
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
Book Review: Two-Week Wait – an IVF story
Written by Luke and Kelly Jackson, 'Two-Week Wait' is a story about IVF that anyone with experience of the treatment can identify with...
TV Review: The One
'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?' wrote Christopher Marlow in 1598. Since the ancient Greeks described the exquisite pain of instant passion through the metaphorical sting of Cupid's arrow, humans have embraced the notion of some magical alchemy that makes us fall helplessly for our one 'true' love...
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
TV Review: Trying
Making comedy out of the ups and downs of the adoption process is a bold move by most standards. Infertility and comedy aren't, after all, the easiest of bedfellows, and there will be no shortage of people like myself, ready to roll our eyes at the first sign of cliché and censure any attempt to create cheap laughs...
TV Review: DNA
In times of lockdown, long shadows and shortening days, it seems counter-intuitive to turn to a new scandi-noir series for an additional helping of bleakness...
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
Event Review: Egg freezing — what's the deal with fertility preservation?
Billed as a 'forum for civilized disagreement', this hour-long webinar offers an opportunity to understand what egg freezing is, how and why it is accessed and what its long term implications are for the women who use it...
TV Review: Little Fires Everywhere
Fresh from the acclaimed Sky series 'Big Little Lies', Reese Witherspoon produces and stars in another big-budget production that explores the complex dynamics of family relationships from female perspectives...
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
Podcast Review: SART Fertility Experts — What is IVF?
'SART Fertility Experts' is an educational project that aims to inform prospective patients about the various options available, through a series of podcasts conducted by experts working in assisted conception, including reproductive endocrinologists, reproductive urologists, genetic counsellors and mental health professionals...