Gentler bone marrow transplants treat adults with sickle cell
Adults with the inherited blood disorder 'sickle cell anaemia' may be treated using blood stem cells transplanted from a healthy tissue-matched donor, scientists based at the US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, have shown. The treatment successfully boosted levels of normal red blood cells in nine out of 10 of the adults who have so far been given the experimental therapy, according to a study published in the New England J...
Comment
Unnatural selection
by Helen Keeler
I had wanted to donate my eggs to a woman with fertility problems ever since having children of my own. I frequently tell my three children that I always wanted to be a mother and that every day they make my dreams come true. How wonderful it would be to help make someone else's dreams come true too....
A link between male infertility and epigenetic disorders in ART babies?
by Dr Rosalind John
The aim of assisted reproductive technology (ART) is to achieve a single most important goal, the birth of a healthy child. ART is responsible for the birth of over 200,000 children each year worldwide. In the most common form of infertility treatment - IVF - the woman's eggs are collected and then combined with the man's sperm in a petri dish. The successfully fertilised eggs are then transferred into the woman's womb. In ...
Embryo donation is not like adoption
by Dr Fiona MacCallum
The recent report by the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) (1), stating that the use of the term 'embryo adoption' is misleading, addresses a question which has been asked since the first successful donation of an embryo. Should treatment with donated embryos be approached as any other assisted reproductive technology (ART), or should it be seen as another form of adoption? Children conceived through embryo donation do resemble adopted chi..