Provisional statistics, released by the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) last week, suggest that the average success rate of IVF treatments has risen. The HFEA collated data supplied to it from a number of fertility clinics across the UK for the year ending 31 March 2001. The figures...
Speaking ahead of the publication of IVF success rates, which show that rates vary substantially from clinic to clinic, Suzi Leather, Chair of the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has said that some people need to be 'more realistic about conceiving'. Women should not be 'panicked' into IVF...
The UK's Medical Research Council (MRC) is expected to announce the establishment of the world's first human stem cell bank later this month. The creation of a national stem cell bank was one of the recommendations made in the August 2000 Donaldson Report, 'Stem Cell Research: Medical Progress with Responsibility...
Scientists have discovered a gene that is responsible for an inherited form of cleft lip and palate. A pair of twins born in Brazil were found to be genetically identical, but a doctor noticed that one of them had been born with a cleft palate, while the other had not...
Human sperm have been shown to have a form of 'memory' for directions. Peter Brugger, a Swiss scientist, tested sperm in a maze, recording the way 714 individual sperm turned at a T-junction. Testing the behavioural differences of sperm might be one way to check whether sperm being used in...
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Misunderstanding IVF patients
by Juliet Tizzard
IVF patients have been all over the UK media this week. First came news that the Medical Research Council is to set up a national embryonic stem cell bank. People who have undergone IVF treatment and have embryos that they no longer wish to use will be asked to donate...