embryo

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Critics Blast 'Designer Baby' Clinic

LA Doc offers defect-screening technique to pick eye color

(Newser) - The founders of an embryo technology that identifies birth defects are furious that a leading Los Angeles fertility clinic is using their discovery to enable couples to choose baby traits like hair and eye color. The role of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis—which identifies thousands of characteristics in a three-day embryo—...

'Obsessed' Octuplet Mom Wanted 'One More Girl'

Grandmom: 'Obviously she overdid herself'

(Newser) - The California mother of octuplets “is obsessed with children” and wanted “just one more girl” even though she already had six kids, her mother told the Los Angeles Times. The 33-year-old divorcee “is very good with children, but obviously she overdid herself,” said her mother, who...

Baby Born in UK Screened To Be Cancer-Free

Scientists implanted in womb only cells without genes that could lead to disease

(Newser) - The UK’s first “cancer-free” baby was born yesterday, but not without a shower of criticism for the parents and doctors, the BBC reports. Doctors screened the embryo for the altered BRCA1 gene, whose carriers have an 80% chance of developing breast cancer. “The parents will have been...

Frozen Embryos Make Bigger Babies

Study finds no negative effects compared with fresh

(Newser) - When it comes to in vitro fertilization, frozen might be better than fresh, a new study shows. Infants born after being implanted in mothers' wombs as frozen embryos were no more likely than those from fresh stock to be born with congenital defects, the BBC reports; but they were also...

UK Approves Research on Human-Animal Embryos

Hybrids will be used for stem cell study

(Newser) - British legislators have voted to allow scientists to create hybrid human-animal embryos for stem cell research, the Daily Telegraph reports. The new laws will give British scientists more freedom to pursue hybrid research than those of any other country. The vote passed by a huge margin after supporters of the...

Human-Animal Embryos Created
 Human-Animal Embryos Created 

Human-Animal Embryos Created

Controversial cow-human creation lived for three days

(Newser) - In a brave new world breakthrough, British scientists for the first time have created animal-human hybrid embryos, the London Times reports. The nuclei of cow eggs were removed and replaced with ones from a human cell, creating "admixed" embryos—or "cybrids" whose genetic material is 99.9% human....

And Baby Makes ... Too Many?
And Baby Makes ... Too Many?

And Baby Makes ... Too Many?

Docs want to cut number of multiple births from fertility treatment

(Newser) - Fertility doctors are beginning to wonder whether they're too successful. With in vitro fertilization prompting a 70% increase in the rate of multiple births since 1980, some are espousing a switch to single-embryo transfer. The procedure lowers the success rate but also lowers the rate of multiple births, with their...

UK Military Wives Freezing Husbands' Sperm

More women planning for kids should husbands die in combat

(Newser) - More UK military wives are freezing their husbands' sperm before the men serve in the Middle East. One London fertility clinic expected interest from soldiers but was surprised by the "wives and girlfriends who want to have children should anything happen," a spokesman said. But servicemen must give...

Calif. Firm First to Clone Human Embryos

Move could aid development of new stem-cell lines

(Newser) - A California lab has cloned a human embryo, a science first; the researchers stopped short, however, of creating stem cells. Using a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, the scientists fused DNA from a man’s skin cells with donated egg cells—and created an embryo with cells specific to...

Stem Cells Made Without Destroying Embryos

Blastomere biopsy may finally overcome ethical obstacles

(Newser) - Scientists have created new embryonic stem cells while keeping the donor embryos intact, Wired reports, a breakthrough that could finally permit long-delayed research into curing cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s. Researchers plucked single cells from 2-day-old human embryos, coaxed them to become ESCs, and developed them into heart tissue,...

Embryonic Stem-Cell Issue Still Dogs GOP

Pols can't nix research and back in-vitro clinics: Time writer

(Newser) - Last week's breakthrough in stem-cell research—the creation of cells from skin rather than embryos—is a tremendous scientific advance, writes Michael Kinsley in Time magazine. But the new science doesn't let hypocritical GOP politicians dodge the controversy over embryonic stem cells: They will still be risking human lives with...

Abortion Foes' New Strategy: Personhood for Embryos

States asked to grant rights to fertilized eggs

(Newser) - Tired of waiting for a more right-leaning court to revisit Roe v. Wade, opponents of abortion in several states are adopting a new strategy: constitutional amendments to grant human status to embryos. The LA Times reports on a grass-roots movement to put referendums on state ballots: It faces considerable obstacles...

Brits Approve Experiments on Human-Animal Embryos

Hybrids to be created for stem cell research

(Newser) - Controversial experiments with embryos that are part human, part animal will be approved by a British commission tomorrow, the Guardian reports. Researchers hope to create the hybrid embryos to extract stem cells for use in potential treatments of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and possibly motor neuron problems and spinal cord...

Cancer Patients Gain Fertility Hope

Eggs from girls as young as 5 can be frozen before chemotherapy

(Newser) - Prepubescent girls with cancer do not have to give up the prospect of parenthood because of the effects of chemotherapy. Cancer patients as young as 5 can have their eggs removed and frozen before treatment, preserving their fertility, according to research by Israeli scientists. With childhood cancer survival rates climbing,...

Stem Cell Breakthrough Spares Embryos

Technique sidesteps both ethical and technical difficulties

(Newser) - Normal skin cells can be transformed into the equivalent of stem cells in mice, researchers report, and the new technique may revolutionize research on humans. Because it doesn't involve embryos or eggs, the process skirts the ethical quagmires surrounding human stem cell research; the easy availability of raw material and...

Britain OKs Human-Animal Hybrids for Research

(Newser) - The British government has reversed its stance on the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos and will propose allowing scientists to use them as sources of stem cells. Scientists developing treatments for incurable diseases would be allowed to grow the hybrid embryos for no longer than two weeks, and implanting them...

Embryos Screened for Cancer Risk
Embryos Screened for Cancer Risk

Embryos Screened for Cancer Risk

Targeting breast cancer gene raises fears of "designer babies"

(Newser) - The British government is poised to OK a procedure that screens embryos for genes that greatly increase the risk—but do not necessarily cause—breast cancer. Two couples with strong family histories of the disease are expected to pioneer the technique, already approved in principle, and crank up the debate...

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