Ohio senate bill proposes 'hybrid' ban
The Ohio (US) State Senate has passed legislation banning the creation of any embryo that would contain both human and animal DNA or tissues. Bill 243 proposes to ban the creation of 'human-animal hybrids'...
BioNews
Zygote
The single cell formed immediately after fertilisation, once the genetic information of the egg and sperm have fused.
38 articles
Females lacking second X-chromosome may have started life 'male'
Turner Syndrome, a condition in which women have only one X chromosome instead of two, may be caused by a missing Y chromosome instead of a missing X as previously thought. Research published in Cell at the start of this month suggests that disruption in the Y chromosome can cause a range of male sex disorders including, surprisingly, Turner Syndrome which has always previously been considered a female sex disorder....
New mathematical framework for identifying healthiest IVF embryos
Researchers from the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) have developed a new mathematical classification scheme that can be used to select embryos for use in assisted reproduction treatments. The Spanish scientists presented this 'intelligent system' of support for infertility treatments in the journal Computer Methods and...
Islamic perspectives on the embryo and gamete donation
1) The embryo Sunnism and Shi'ism comprise approximately eighty and twenty per cent of the Islamic world, respectively. Like other monotheistic religions, Islam regards one's personal identity, or one's 'I' in terms of personhood, as being tantamount to one's immortal, immaterial and rational soul. Differences between the religions, however, exist...
New research sheds light on multiple IVF pregnancies
New research into the formation of early embryos (blastocysts) shows how multiple pregnancies resulting from IVF might be explained and reduced, even those where only a single embryo has been implanted. The research was led by Dianna Payne - visiting fellow at the Mio Fertility Clinic in Yonago...
FISHing for trouble?
Make a habit of two things - to help, or at least to do no harm' (Attr Hippokrates of Kos). The principle of preimplantation testing for sporadic chromosome aneuploidy (preimplantation genetic screening, PGS) to improve the reproductive efficiency of assisted conception for couples at increased risk is a sound one. It...
Key fertilisation gene identified
Researchers have pinpointed a key gene involved in the successful formation of a zygote (fertilised egg). The team, based at the University of Bath in the UK and the Centre de Genetique Moleculaire et Cellulaire in France, studied the role of the Hira gene during the first 15 minutes after...
No more research on 'three-parent embryos'?
Researchers from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China have succeeded in creating a pregnancy using an embryo containing the genetic material of three different people. An egg cell taken from one woman was fertilised by in vitro fertilisation (IVF), creating a one-cell embryo, or zygote. The nucleus of the zygote...