California's stem cell programme is now free to start distributing its $3 billion funding to researchers, following the refusal of the state's Supreme Court to consider another legal challenge. The high court upheld last year's ruling by a lower court, which upheld the constitutionality of the...
By Mackenna Roberts: The first Canadian clinic to offer long-term egg storage services for healthy young women has opened, aimed at those who wish to delay childbearing until a later age, when their eggs would be less likely to be successfully fertilised. Previously, this option has only been available to...
The US Geron Corporation has reported pioneering steps towards a new treatment for type 1 diabetes, having successfully converted human embryonic stem (ES)cells into insulin-producing cells. The research, published in the journal Stem Cells, found that islet-like clusters of cells, similar to those normally found in...
A woman's fertility could be influenced by her childhood experiences, according to a new study by researchers based at University College London. Their findings, published in the journal PloS Medicine, suggest that there is a critical period from birth up to eight years of age that...
Hopes aroused by a controversial study suggesting that women may be able to produce new egg cells have been seemingly dashed. The 2005 paper, published in the journal Cell by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, fleetingly gave hope to infertile women when it suggested that egg production...
The UK Government has published a draft version of the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. The proposals will amend the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. As it stands, the Bill will ban the creation of embryos that contain genetic material from both animals...
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Outlawing genetic discrimination
by Susannah Baruch
For more than a decade, policymakers in the US have considered - but not yet passed - legislation that would outlaw the misuse of genetic information by health insurers and employers. The need for such legislation is growing: more than 1000 genetic tests are now clinically available and with many more on...