A team of researchers based at universities in Detroit, US, and Leeds in the UK, have identified the genetic pattern of healthy sperm. They believe the discovery could be a major step forward in our understanding of male infertility and perhaps lead to the development of new male contraceptives. Male...
The UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has issued the first licences for a new type of genetic screening of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) embryos. The HFEA had already agreed in principle to this form of genetic screening in July 2001. Known as aneuploidy screening, the technique enables embryos...
Researchers have found new evidence that casts more light on why a faulty version of a single gene - BRCA1 - is linked to a higher rate of breast cancer in women. In women who carry a correctly functioning copy of the BRCA1 gene, which is located on chromosome 17, the risk...
The Observer, one of the UK's Sunday Newspapers, has published a report claiming that sex selection techniques are available commercially for British and other couples at a fertility clinic in Belgium. Located in Ghent, the clinic is said to offer the service to couples who already have children of one...
A report in Science Express, an online advance publications section of the journal Science, shows that adult blood stem cells are not able to transform themselves into many other types of body tissue. To some, the findings indicate that adult stem cells do not have the same potential for use...
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Screening embryos for chromosomal abnormalities
by Juliet Tizzard
In this week's BioNews, we report on the issuing of licenses to two UK IVF clinics to provide a procedure known as aneuploidy screening. The aim of this technique, which is a variation of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, is to screen out embryos that, because of chromosomal abnormality, are unlikely to...