Louise Brown, the world's first IVF baby, will next week celebrate her 30th birthday - but as parents and children born through IVF representing each year since Louise was born came together at Bourn Hall fertility clinic to mark the occasion, many commentators have pointed to the continued...
The use of DNA chip (microarray) technology in embryo screening is to be investigated by an ethics task force from the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). The technology has the potential to screen IVF embryos, in order to improve fertility treatment success rates. In...
An overwhelming majority of infertility patients in the UK said they would contemplate travelling abroad for fertility treatment, according to the first comprehensive study on the strength and motivations behind the fertility tourism industry. Among the 339 infertile patients who responded to an online poll conducted by...
Researchers at Imperial College London have identified a genetic link to obesity. Comparing the DNA of over 13,000 obese individuals to the DNA of non-obese control subjects, they identified three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the PCSK1 gene that were associated with obesity. The SNPs - single 'letter...
A form of a gene that protects many Africans from certain forms of malaria increases HIV infection risk, according to a new study published in the journal Cell Host and Microbe. Researchers Professor Sunil K Ahuja, from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio...
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How do we view alternative families?
by Professor Olga van den Akker
Most cultures are advocates of procreation partly because it stabilises communities, it makes individual and collective economic sense, and it is culturally the norm. Consequently, not being able to conceive naturally sets infertile individuals and couples apart from the fertile majority of people who do not have to think about...