A couple from Stockport, Greater Manchester, have conceived a second baby using sperm frozen 19 years ago. Emmanuel and Zoe Iyoha are expecting their second child after receiving IVF treatment using sperm preserved on Mr Iyoha's behalf in 1989. Mr Iyoha was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and...
By Rachael Dobson: A milder form of IVF treatment that has fewer side effects and is less expensive does not reduce the chances of a successful pregnancy, according to a new study. Research led by Dr Marinus Eijkemans, at Utrecht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, reported that the milder...
Nerve tissue derived from stem cells made from reprogrammed skin developed into normal brain tissue and relieved symptoms of Parkinson's disease in rats, in a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS) last week. Scientists at the Whitehead...
US researchers have identified a gene that seems to play a significant role in the development of asthma. Reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine, Carole Ober and her colleagues at the University of Chicago found that people can either be protected from asthma or find...
By Katy Sinclair: Christian groups have instigated a judicial review of the decision by the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to grant licences to create human hybrid embryos for stem cell research. The Christian Legal Centre (CLC) along with Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Core) will argue that the...
The lower house of the German Federal Parliament last week voted to ease restrictions on human embryonic stem (ES) cell research. The Bundestag decided by 346 votes to 228 to allow scientists to import human ES cells created before the 1 May 2007, after researchers expressed concern...
John Gonzalez, the founding director of a controversial UK-based online company - 'ManNotIncluded.com', which delivered fresh sperm to women for DIY-insemination - was sentenced last week at the Wood Green Crown Court in London to sixteen months incarceration for five counts of fraudulent activities. Judge Juliet May QC said...
In issue 451 of BioNews we published a news story that implied that guidelines produced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in 2004 for the provision of IVF on the NHS, which recommended that all Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) should provide three cycles of IVF treatment...
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Why have a free vote on 'saviour siblings'?
by Sheila McLean
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Bill, currently making its way through the UK's Parliament, marks the first major re-think of the original Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, passed in 1990. In the almost 20 years since the Act was passed, new medical developments and techniques have emerged which raise...