Category Archives: Embryology

New Delhi: Since its introduction, the surrogacy bill has been topic of controversy. In January, 2017, the Rajya Sabha Chairman referred the legislation, as introduced in the Lok Sabha, to the Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare for examination and a report on it. Recently, the said committee submitted its report, which was then presented in the Rajya Sabha. The committee, indeed put forward many progressive suggestions, and pointed out some very valid drawbacks in the proposed bill that need to be corrected for its successful implementation. The committee was seen strongly recommendingthat the Assisted Reproduction Technologies (ART) Bill, 2008 should be brought forth first before bringing in the surrogacy bill as surrogacy procedures cannot be conducted without assisted reproduction techniques and there is urgent need to regulate the ART clinics across the country. Amongst other recommendations, the committee made an observation, pointing out to the obvious flaw in the bill, that deals with the definition of a human embryologist-a specialty doctor necessary in the process of surrogacy and related procedures to avoid any kind of negligent and violators incidents. It was noted that the definition limitedhuman embryologist to one having the said PG degree recognised by the IMC … Continue reading →

Advancing Science University of Illinois researchers have developed a way to produce 3-D images of live embryos in cattle that could help determine embryo viability before in vitro fertilization in humans. Infertility can be devastating for those who want children. Many seek treatment, and the cost of a single IVF cycle can be $20,000, making it desirable to succeed in as few attempts as possible. Advanced knowledge regarding the health ofembryoscould help physicians select those that are most likely to lead to successful pregnancies. The newmethod, published in the journalNature Communications, brought together electrical and computer engineering professor Gabriel Popescu and animal sciences professor Matthew Wheeler in a collaborative project through the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the U. of I. Called gradient light interference microscopy, the method solves a challenge that other methods have struggled withimaging thick, multicellular samples. In many forms of traditional biomedical microscopy, light is shined through very thin slices of tissue to produce an image. Other methods use chemical or physical markers that allow the operator to find the specific object they are looking for within a thicksample, but those markers can be toxic to living tissue, Popescu said. When looking at … Continue reading →

In his articleObsessive compulsive disordersome time ago,Martin Sciclunaasserted that: An ovum is a living cell, as is a spermatozoon. Both can be described as alive. The cluster of cells which is the embryo is likewise alive. But this is not the same as saying it is a human person or a baby. The question is: at what stage of development should the status of a child be accorded to an embryo of the human species? Fertilised eggs and embryos lack any capacity for personhood by any standard of neurological functioning... To declare them as such is to devalue the personhood of actual children. This is paving the way for the introduction of abortion in Malta for disabled unborn children and euthanasia. I dont know how Scicluna arrived at this description of an embryo. He is no medical scientistand isno authority on embryology. He quoted no authoritative sources at all. It washisdefinition of an embryo. Again he painted himself an authority on thissubject. He also rested his views on what certain sectors of religious beliefs say about the human embryo. Yet, ironically, he lambastedreligious believers for thinking they alone can define a nations morality... and for wantingto impose their morality on … Continue reading →

Ernst Haeckel was an influential German scientist who supported Charles Darwins theory of evolution. He published his influential theory of embryology, distilled as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny in 1866, seven years after Darwins On the Origin of Species. Haeckels theory fell out of favor and hasnt been part of evolutionary theory for many decades, but its still cited today as a cause of mischief by modern Creationists. Haeckels theory The similarities between embryos of different animal species were noted decades before Darwin: while adults of different species are easy to tell apart, their embryos are not. Haeckel took this further and is most known for his 1874 drawing (above) of the development of various animal embryosfish, chicken, human, and so onto illustrate his point. Ontogeny is the development of an embryo, and phylogeny is an organisms evolutionary history. So by ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, Haeckel was saying that you can watch through an organisms development as an embryo a replay of its development through hundreds of million years of evolution. For example, a human embryo first looks like a fish (notice the gill-like structure), then like a reptile (four limbs and a tail), and finally like a mammal, which is the evolutionary … Continue reading →

Calling the draft surrogacy Bill narrow, the parliamentary committee has recommended allowing live-in couples, divorced women and widows to use surrogates, adding that a surrogate should not have to belong to the parents family. The committee has said that purely altruistic surrogacy will infringe on the surrogates rights. Credit: Reuters New Delhi:Criticising the Centres draft Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 for having a narrow understanding of Indian society and playing into patriarchal assumptions, the parliamentary panel that was set up to look into the Bills provisions and speak to experts in the field has recommended broadening the Bills purview and a more liberal surrogacy framework in an 88-page report. No such thing as purely altruistic surrogacy The original Bill wanted to do away with commercial surrogacy and instead base it on altruism. The surrogate has to be a close relative of the married couple in question (who must be infertile, of Indian origin, married for at least five years and between 23-50 for women and 26-55 for men years of age). A woman can act as a surrogate only once, the Bill said, while she is between 25 and 35 years of age. This definition of altruistic surrogacy, the 31-member has … Continue reading →

Nicole Burns and Melissa Nanidzhanyan, Embryologists, The Valley Hospital Fertility Center Newswise If you or a loved one is having difficulty conceiving, you may have researched in vitro fertilization options. In vitro fertilization, which is commonly referred to as IVF, is a process that begins with ovulation induction to stimulate a womans ovaries. Next, the eggs are harvested through an ultrasound-guided technique. Once the eggs have been retrieved, they are fertilized and grown in a laboratory for three to five days before the embryos are transferred into the womans uterus or frozen for implantation at a later date. A key member of an IVF patients clinical team is her embryologist. An embryologist is a scientist who has a bachelors degree in the clinical sciences and who participates in continuing education to ensure that she is aware of any clinical developments in the field of embryology. She specializes in the care of embryos from the time of egg retrieval to the time when the embryo is implanted into the womans uterus. The embryologist is responsible for: As an IVF patient, there are two different embryo cycles that may be involved in your care. The first, a fresh cycle, involves the embryologist … Continue reading →

University of Illinois researchers have developed a way to produce 3-D images of live embryos in cattle that could help determine embryo viability before in vitro fertilization in humans. Infertility can be devastating for those who want children. Many seek treatment, and the cost of a single IVF cycle can be $20,000, making it desirable to succeed in as few attempts as possible. Advanced knowledge regarding the health of embryos could help physicians select those that are most likely to lead to successful pregnancies. The new method, published in the journalNature Communications, brought together electrical and computer engineering professorGabriel Popescuand animal sciences professorMatthew Wheelerin a collaborative project through the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the U. of I. Called gradient light interference microscopy, the method solves a challenge that other methods have struggled with -- imaging thick, multicellular samples. In many forms of traditional biomedical microscopy, light is shined through very thin slices of tissue to produce an image. Other methods use chemical or physical markers that allow the operator to find the specific object they are looking for within a thick sample, but those markers can be toxic to living tissue, Popescu said. "When looking at … Continue reading →

Profile Articles Activity Joyce Harper is Professor of Human Genetics and Embryology at University College London in the Institute for Womens Health where she is head of the Reproductive Health Department, Principal Investigator of the Embryology, IVF and Reproductive Genetics Group, Director of Education and Director of two MSc programmes - Prenatal Genetics and Fetal Medicine and Reproductive Science and Womens Health. She has been working in the fields of IVF and reproductive genetics since 1987 and written over 170 scientific papers and published two textbooks. Her research includes preimplantation genetic diagnosis, factors affecting preimplantation development, comparison of in vivo and in vitro development, differences in culture media, embryo selection methods, sperm DNA damage and social and ethical issues surrounding IVF and reproductive genetics including gamete donation, surrogacy, social egg freezing, religious views to ART and fertility education and awareness. Joyce is passionate about public engagement to discuss all aspects of womens health, including wellbeing. She has established a public engagement group with daily posts http://www.globalwomenconnected.com. Joyce is writing a book covering womens health from birth to death. She is deputy chair of the UK Fertility Education Initiative, trying to improve fertility awareness in the UK and a member of … Continue reading →

The work on the repair of a gene in human eggs, reported in the journal Nature, is an important scientific achievement. It made use of Crispr (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) technology to make a single specific change in the three billion units of the human genome. The work is indeed a stunning application of Crispr, with some elegant and surprising results and the publicity is good for my science but it is not likely to change the way reproductive medical genetics is practised and it raises no new ethical problems. The claims made for the work, amplified by the media, will raise expectations in families carrying genes with severe medical effects and has already excited the critics who fear that geneticists are busy undermining our society. So let us first look at what has been achieved in the science, and then tease out some of the implications. Medical genetic disorders cause a great deal of suffering and affect about one person in 25. Genetic engineering and DNA sequencing invented in the 1970s led to a revolution in genetics. Mutant genes causing many genetic disorders have been identified. Advances in human embryology led to in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) in 1978, … Continue reading →

Whats the weight? Jenny Elia Pfeiffer/Getty By Jessica Hamzelou SINCE the first test tube baby arrived 39 years ago, an estimated 6.5 million children have been born thanks to IVF and similar techniques. But we are only just starting to learn about the long-term health of people conceived using assisted reproduction techniques (ART), who may have a higher risk of obesity in later life. Today, 1 in every 30 babies in Japan is conceived by ART, says Tomoya Hasegawa of Tokyo Medical University. These babies are usually healthy, but tend to have a lower birth weight. Large studies that didnt look at conception method have previously found that low birth weight is linked to adult obesity and diabetes. To investigate further, Heleen Zandstra of Maastricht Medical Centre, the Netherlands, and her team have been comparing the effects of using two different culture media to support the growth of early IVF embryos. Earlier they had found that one of these was associated with babies that were 112 grams lighter at birth than those beginning life in the other medium. Thats a big difference, considering babies only weigh about 3 kilograms, says Zandstra. Advertisement Now the team have followed up on these … Continue reading →