Embryonic stem cell-derived embryos (ESCDEs) have been around for a long time. Last year, an ESCDE, assembled from mouse cells in vitro, replicated natural mouse embryo development in utero up to day 8.5 post-fertilisation. In mouse gestation terms, this amounts to the completion of gastrulation […]
Tag Archives: HFEA
Mother permitted to give birth to her dead daughter’s child
Following a Court of Appeal battle a 60-year-old woman has been granted permission to take her dead daughter’s frozen eggs to a US fertility treatment clinic, to fertilise them with donor sperm and then (assuming success) to carry the embryos and (she hopes) give birth […]
New government consultation on three parent embryos asks the wrong questions
The Department of Health today has published for consultation draft regulations to allow mitochondrial donation to prevent the transmission of serious mitochondrial disease from mother to child. The consultation will close on 21 May. This new government consultation is not asking whether but how these […]
Gamete donors: compensation or payment?
Over the past few days there has been a spate of articles in the media informing us that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) intends to increase the rates of payments – sorry, ‘compensation’ – given to egg and sperm donors. Despite claims from […]
155 animal-human embryos created in the UK – we think
An apparently straightforward question to government last week (20 July) generated an apparently straightforward reply. Lord Alton asked how many ‘cybrid’ embryos (cytoplasmic animal-human hybrid) have been generated with eggs from non-human species in total. The reply was: ‘The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) […]