What's New -the Latest Advances in IVF | What's New at New Hope Fertility | What's Next -the Future of IVF
WHAT'S NEXT - THE FUTURE OF IVF
Human Nuclear Transfer and Oocyte Reconstruction
Couples faced with egg infertility almost invariably resist the most effective option available -egg donation. The financial and emotional burden is awesome, so they pray for a way to transmit the genetic legacy of the infertile woman. A promising experimental procedure, oocyte (egg) reconstruction (also called Human Nuclear Transfer or Cytoplasmic Nuclear Transfer), that involves transferring part of one woman's egg into another's. In this case, scientists use the healthy portion of a donor egg to supplement the defective portion of the infertile recipient's egg to help it survive, hence making one good egg. The infertile woman's genetic legacy is preserved because 99% of the genetic material that determine physical traits in the embryo is from the infertile woman, and 1% of the donor cytoplasm, which simply contains mitochondrial DNA that gives the egg energy to survive, is from the donor person. Once the egg is fertilized, the embryo is implanted in the infertile woman's uterus.
Unfortunately, after many babies were born in the US using Human Cytoplasmic Transfer, ethical and medical complications spurred the U.S. government to curtail the procedure in 2001. Today, fertility scientists must apply for investigational clinical trial application to continue research in this area, and New Hope Fertility intends to obtain approvals and continue our research. It is likely that with continued research this technique may prove its efficacy and safety in the future.
Before the procedure was banned in the US & in China, New Hope Fertility Center’s Founder & Medical Director, Dr. John Zhang, was one of the few of scientists whose research resulted in a human pregnancy. Dr. Zhang led a team of Human Nuclear Cytoplasmic Transfer scientists at Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Science in Guangzhou, China, and in 2003 a Chinese woman became pregnant with triplets. The fetuses terminated in the 24th and 29th weeks, but their work remains unprecedented in advancing this important science.