New world record for the longest frozen embryo – 30 years
Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway were conceived in April 1992 and were born in October 2022 in Portland, Oregon. They hold the record as the world’s...
Fertility watchdog wants to overhaul UK laws on embryos
The UK’s fertility regulator is seeking to liberalise techniques for manipulating human embryos in assisted reproduction and research. The Guardian describes its plans as “the...
The wisdom of Albert Tochilovsky, owner of Ukraine’s biggest surrogacy business
Since the Kyiv-based IVF clinic BioTexCom is the probably the largest surrogacy agency in the world, its owner’s thoughts about the future of assisted reproduction...
Another step forward towards artificial gametes
Have scientists moved a step closer to in vitro gametogenesis – creating human embryos from artificial eggs and sperm? In a paper published earlier this...
Is Singapore ready for mass production of eggs and sperm from stem cells?
Scientists have generated artificial lab-grown sperm and eggs from rats and mice, which have gone on to successfully produced healthy offspring, a procedure known as...
Singapore faces legal and ethical challenges with sperm and egg donation
In recent year, Singapore has seen increasing utilization of IVF and other new assisted reproductive technologies, similar to the trend in many developed countries worldwide....
Abortion after mix-up at New York IVF clinic
A Massachusetts couple has aborted a baby at 6 months and is suing their IVF clinic after discovering that the baby was not related to...
Three-parent embryo law passed in Australia
A bill authorising three-parent embryos sailed through the upper house of the Australian Parliament in late March after a fierce debate. “Maeve’s Law”, named after...
US scientists claim that they can scan the whole genome of an IVF embryo
A California company claims that it can read nearly the entire genome of an early embryo after extracting a single cell. In an article in...
When fertility management becomes big business
It’s a commonplace of science journalism that ethics cannot keep pace with technology. As far as assisted reproduction goes, ethics cannot keep pace with business....
No ethical obstacles to artificial gametes, says ethicist
While the development of induced pluripotent stem cells has opened up many avenues of research into promising therapies, it has also made possible the creation...
Will human germline editing promote equality?
No, says Scottish bioethicist The topic of heritable genome editing is still very much alive, as Australia’s move towards legalising replacement mitochondrial therapy shows. An...