US scientists have carried out the world's first successful ovary tissue transplant in a primate, and have used one of the resulting eggs to produce a healthy IVF baby monkey. Team leader David Lee, of Oregon University, said it was the first time transplanted ovarian tissue had been used to...
A new project that aims to identify the 'on-off' switches that control human genes has begun, scientists announced last week. Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre in the UK and German biotech company 'Epigenomics' hope to complete the work in five years. They say that identifying the chemical markers...
A teacher in Germany who has been refused a permanent job because a genetic disorder runs in her family is now fighting the decision in court, the British Medical Journal reported last week. The woman, who has relatives affected by Huntington's disease (HD), was rejected for a job on the...
A new male contraceptive is 100 per cent effective and free from side effects, a team of Australian scientists claimed last week. The team, based at the Anzac Research Institute in Sydney, say the results of the study show the treatment provides an alternative to the female contraceptive pill. 'This...
The likelihood of IVF success could be down to the length of a woman's telomeres - the segments of DNA that make up the ends of chromosomes - reports Nature magazine. US scientists, based at the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, have shown that women whose eggs have shorter chromosome tips...
Canada's long awaited legislation on human reproduction and related matters hit further obstacles last week. The comprehensive bill (C-13) on assisted reproduction technologies (ARTs) was first introduced to the Canadian parliament in May 2002. Entitled an 'Act respecting assisted human reproduction', its purpose, according to its sponsors, is to...
A voluntary register to enable people conceived using donated eggs, sperm or embryos to contact their donors and biological half-siblings is to be launched in the UK. The registry, called UK DonorLink, will be piloted early next year, and will be available to anyone over the age of 18. It...
Claims made by the company Clonaid that it had produced five cloned babies in the early part of this year were part of a media hoax, say two Canadian journalists. Working for the Montreal Gazette, the reporters went 'undercover' to infiltrate the Raelians, a sect linked to Clonaid. One of...
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Do ovary transplants allow us to cheat nature?
by Juliet Tizzard
By the end of this decade, one in 250 people will be survivors of a childhood cancer. And there is a good chance that the treatment that saved them from cancer will have impaired their ability to have children later in life. Whilst saving lives is the priority, it does...
The case against sex selection
by Dr David King
Sex selection is the exercise of sexism at the most profound level, choosing who gets born, and which types of lives are preferred. In traditional-patriarchal societies, such as in India and China, the preference for boys has led to huge imbalances in the sex ratio in the population. In western...