CHR in the Media

You may have heard the news that a mostly British team of researchers was able to culture immature human eggs to full maturity in the lab. CHR's Director of the Division of Laboratories, Dr. David F. Albertini, who has been collaborating with the British team for a long time, explains the significance of this milestone in human reproduction:

And if you are interested, here is the article reporting this accomplishment in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction. You may have heard the news that a mostly British team of researchers was able to culture immature human eggs to full maturity in the lab. CHR's Director of the Division of Laboratories, Dr. David F. Albertini, who has been collaborating with the British team for a long time, explains the significance of this milestone in human reproduction:

And if you are interested, here is the article reporting this accomplishment in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction.

Reuters' writer Lisa Rapaport reported on a recent study that found elevated risks of certain, very rare childhood cancers in children conceived via IVF. Authors of the study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, explained that the absolute risks were still extremely low and parents shouldn't lose sleep over the possibility or avoid fertility treatments altogether.

The article quoted Dr. Norbert Gleicher, CHR's Medical Director and Chief Scientist, who said that the elevated risk of cancer may be caused by chromosomal abnormalities in the eggs and embryos, which rise as women age.

"Couples considering IVF shouldn’t let the slight risk of childhood cancer influence their decisions." However, Dr. Gleicher advised that "there are risks in IVF, but they are very low (as far as we can see so far) and, therefore, worth taking" when benefits are considered.

In late March, Lisa Rapaport interviewed Dr. Gleicher for her article on _Reuters _about the reported higher risk of cancer among children born from IVF. Dr. Gleicher pointed out that this may be a result of chromosomal instabilities related to maternal age rather than a direct effect of IVF and patients should not prematurely forego fertility treatment.

In mid-April, Dr. Gleicher was an invited participant at a roundtable discussion on genetic editing, held by Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center. New York Times ran an editorial on the issue, arguing that mitochondrial replacement therapy should at least be considered as an exception to the federal ban on human gene editing.

This is a part of the April 2019 CHR VOICE.

February 9, 2018 (New York, NY) - Norbert Gleicher, MD, Medical Director and Chief Scientist of New York's Center for Human Reproduction (CHR), and Arthur Caplan, PhD, the William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center (NYULMC), and founding director of NYULMC's Division of Medical Ethics, just published in the February 2018 issue of NATURE Biotechnology an article in which they addressed the rapid growth in numbers of abandoned human embryos in the U.S. following in vitro fertilization (IVF). They estimate that among currently approximately one million cryopreserved embryos in the U.S., conservatively, at least ca. 90,000 embryos have been abandoned by their owners (under the laws of most states, embryos are considered "property").

Some owners, after they successfully complete their family with fertility treatments, explicitly donate their embryos for research or for fertility treatment for others in the form of embryo donation. Under professional guidelines, embryos are currently considered "abandoned" if owners for five years have failed in contacting the IVF center where embryos are cryopreserved, and repeated documented attempts by the IVF center to reach owners have been unsuccessful. After formally declaring embryos abandoned, the same guidelines then allow IVF centers to ethically dispose of such embryos. Only very few centers, as the authors report, however, actually dispose of these embryos which, therefore, accumulate in IVF centers in ever greater numbers since professional guidelines, currently also specifically prohibit any other use of abandoned embryos, including their use in research.

Gleicher and Caplan now argue that a more logical and more ethical approach to this rapidly growing problem, that also would better reflect the special respect the field extends to human embryos, would be the creation of a third option, under which abandoned embryos could still contribute to the betterment of mankind by making them available to carefully vetted research in qualified research institutions.

Human embryo research is irreplaceable since no animal models adequately mimic the human embryo experience. And more than ever, embryo research in recent years has been at the core of many of the most important new developments in medical sciences, from stem cells to cancer biology and regenerative to geriatric medicine. Yet, while even leading research laboratories often lack access to adequate numbers of human embryos, here are thousands of abandoned embryos which, practically overnight, could offer more than adequate availability.

Gleicher and Caplan not only describe the problem in very much detail but, in addition, also offer practical solutions, which would require changes in current professional guidelines and offer safeguards that abandoned embryos not be used but in carefully vetted research.