A mammalian embryo in the first stage of development, when the fertilised egg has grown into a hollow ball made up of a few hundred cells.
BioNews reporting from ESHRE conference, Berlin: A form of IVF in which a single sperm is injected directly into the egg appears to slow down the growth rate of the resulting female (but not male) early embryos, according to a new Dutch study. The scientists, based at the Academic Hospital...
BioNews reporting from ESHRE conference, Berlin: Couples at risk of having a child affected by a genetic disease could benefit from new, faster tests to detect gene mutations in IVF embryos, Australian scientists say. The research shows that 'gene chips' can be used to carry out preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD...
News that scientists in South Korea have managed to clone human embryos and to derive stem cells from one of them has unsurprisingly generated much debate about the politics, law and ethics of human cloning. South Korea has already passed a law prohibiting cloning for reproductive purposes; now the scientists...
Many science and medical journalists will have spent last week in Salford, attending the annual Festival of Science, hosted by the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). Judging from newspaper coverage over the last week, there was plenty at the conference to keep the media busy. But one...
Researchers at King's College in London have succeeded in growing the UK's first human embryo stem cell-line, it was reported last week. 'We are very excited about this development' said team leader Stephen Minger, adding that human embryonic stem cells 'are capable of giving rise to all the different types...
Researchers in China have 'reprogrammed' human cells by fusing them with rabbit eggs emptied of their own genetic material, and have also managed to isolate stem cells from the resulting embryos, reported last week's Nature. The team, based at the Shanghai Second Medical University, think that the stem cells derived...
UK Researchers have discovered a molecule in sperm cells that triggers fertilisation. Professor Tony Lai and his team at the University of Wales, Cardiff, announced last week that they have isolated a 'sperm factor' gene that makes a protein which causes egg cells to begin to divide and develop into...
Claims have been made that a new technique, available in the UK, is being used in other countries to select the sex of embryos for social reasons. According to a report published in the Mail on Sunday, blastocyst transfer results in more male embryos than female being transferred to the...
A report in the journal Nature says that scientists in China have inserted human DNA into rabbit eggs that have been stripped of their own chromosomes. The team, from the Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Sciences in Guangzhou, hopes to use the resulting 'hybrid embryos' in embryo stem (ES) cell...
Culturing embryos to the blastocyst stage during in vitro fertilisation (IVF) increases the likelihood of pregnancy in patients for whom standard IVF has failed, according to a paper published in the August issue of Fertility and Sterility. Dr Jose R Cruz and colleagues at The George Washington Medical Center in...
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