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October 18, 2007

ASRM roundup (and a plea for pronunciation assistance)

So the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s 63rd annual meeting has ended. I took a stab at giving you some of the higlights, but here’s an incomplete roundup of coverage elsewhere on the meeting.

While I was in another session on cryopreservation of eggs, embryos and the like, it looks like I missed some interesting imaging studies that someone posted on over at huliq.


I was around for the press briefing on Desvenlafaxine to treat the symptoms of menopause – mostly hot flushes. This is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRIs are usually used to treat depression) that Wyeth has been testing in hopes of regaining its former glory in the treatment of menopause after years of dwindling prospects over hormonal therapies. It was interesting, I thought, but something that they’ve been working on for a while. Some were concerned about suicidal thoughts – a side effect flagged in young people when they start the drug – but the data don’t currently indicate anything abnormal – and the study design only accepted women with clean bills of mental health. Lifesciencesworld.com picked up a presser on their blog.

Reuters story here

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Posted by Brendan Maher at 02:46 PM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

October 17, 2007

Epigenetics and ART (ready to blow?)

Now, I love me some epigenetics. Feeling bad that I had to miss the Nova special last night called “The Ghost in our Genes.” I decided to sit in on a nurses session about epigenetics and assisted reproductive technologies.

Lee Fallon a former genetics counsellor and consultant made a very nice presentation employing the usual, though not unhelpful analogies, like the idea that epigenetics is akin to highlighting. If the genome is the book of human life, epigenetics provides the cells with context -- instructions on how to read genes and how much or how little emphasis should be placed on certain genes in certain cell types.

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Posted by Brendan Maher at 06:28 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Contraceptive craziness (warning you will enjoy politics or else)

Reproduction was hard enough. So today, just to throw a kink in things, a major focus at ASRM's 2007 annual meeting was contraception. I didn't make it to many of the symposia on the topic -- too busy with preimplantation genetic diagnositcs. Nevertheless few choice comments came from an engaging, though poorly attended late morning panel on the politics of contraception, something that is largely only an issue for christian dominated countries like the US.

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Posted by Brendan Maher at 03:45 AM |

October 16, 2007

Advancing embryonic stem cells

At ASRM George Daley gave this morning’s plenary lecture to a dense crowd. He talked about the growing relationship between embryonic stem cell research and reproductive medicine and discussed the promise of embryonic stem cell research for basic discovery and, cautiously, for human health. But he made a point about the many complaints often voiced about the fact that ‘no cures have come’ from embryonic stem cell research, flagging this year’s Nobel prize winning scientists for the development of knockout mice.

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Posted by Brendan Maher at 04:34 PM |

Sprucing up the Masturbatorium

Sherilyn Levy the Nurse in Charge at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Reproductive Medicine says that she knows what guys want. In ART, the woman’s job -- from hormone injections, to harvesting, to implantation, and hopefully pregnancy and delivery -- can be pretty harrowing. The man’s job is simple really, but Levy and a colleague Bonnie Campbell decided that B&W’s aging ‘men’s lounge’ an important part of most fertility procedures at the hospital, was due for an update.

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Posted by Brendan Maher at 12:43 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

October 15, 2007

The aging egg

I’m reporting from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual meeting this week, in Washington D.C. There are sure to be some controversial subjects discussed including the ethics and efficacy of prenatal genetic screening in assisted reproductive technology (ART), as well as a hot up and coming topic in the cryopreservation of eggs. In press conferences held this morning however, the interesting topic was a growing concern in ART, and one that has some controversial implications internationally. Timothy Hickman, medical director at Houston IVF in Texas, and others were discussing the justifications for transferring multiple embryos in older women.
The danger implicit in transferring, say six embryos as opposed to two, is generally multiple births, something that stands to threaten the health of older women. Nevertheless, the eggs of older women are sometimes of questionable quality, riddled by aneuploidy and other factors that enhance the likelihood for miscarriage and failed pregnancy.

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Posted by Brendan Maher at 06:15 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

October 25, 2006

ASRM: Odds and ends

Sometimes there is a sweet moment when staying to the bitter end of a meeting proves worthwhile.

And sometimes there is not.

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Posted by Helen Pearson at 11:55 PM |

ASRM: Global boy shortage

IVF has many flaws, but a new one to me is that it skews the sex ratio. A lot. Normally in the US, just over 51% of babies born are boys and 49% are girls – and apparently there has been a worldwide trend in recent years towards fewer boys. (Is a global boy shortage approaching? Panic.)

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Posted by Helen Pearson at 11:52 PM |

ASRM: Older embryos can survive stem-cell extraction

Mouse study suggests stem-cell work could be made more efficient.

US researchers say they have improved the technique by which stem cells can be coaxed from an embryo without harming it.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones at 06:52 PM |

ASRM: Not uncontroversial

“You can’t just do things with people’s tissues without talking to them about it,” said UK stem cell expert Peter Braude this morning. This, to a participant who asked whether it was OK to take embryos which women had given their permission to discard, and use them to extract stem cells. Ethicists must be squirming.

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Posted by Helen Pearson at 05:12 PM |

ASRM: Dicing up embryos

What are the limits of an embryo’s powers? Scientists seem to marvel at how cells from early embryos can do remarkable things – and indeed, it is astonishing that they can grow an entire new person from a single cell.

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Posted by Helen Pearson at 02:12 AM |

October 24, 2006

ASRM: Cost of eggs and embryos

Some numbers this morning made me think.

First, the cost of an egg. Sigal Klipstein wanted to know whether the $5000-$10,000 paid to women who donate their eggs in the US is too much. So she asked them how they spent it.

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Posted by Helen Pearson at 06:56 PM |

ASRM: Genes predict IVF success

Unpicking the problems of infertility may help guide treatment.

A battery of genetic tests might soon foretell which women are more likely to become pregnant by in vitro fertilization (IVF) — and which are more likely to face problems and disappointment.

READ THE STORY HERE.

Posted by Nicola Jones at 06:04 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

ASRM: Sponsored water

You know you’re at a meeting attended by lots of doctors (the medical kind, rather than research scientists) when (a) most people wear suits and (b) the cookie supply is constantly replenished during break. Oh, and the water fountains are sponsored.

Posted by Helen Pearson at 01:50 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

ASRM: Babies and gray hair

More from the fringes of reproductive medicine. (I know I haven’t delivered yet on the weird things that doctors do with embryos, but that will come I’m sure.)

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Posted by Helen Pearson at 01:48 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

ASRM: Tickling embryos

This evening I met someone who teaches medical clowning. My eyebrows shot up too. But Shevach Friedler and his friend (the clown) teach other clowns how to cheer up ill people.

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Posted by Helen Pearson at 01:45 AM |

October 23, 2006

ASRM: World view

“It’s like three jumbo jets packed with pregnant women going down every day.” Now that’s the way to get attention.

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Posted by Helen Pearson at 08:28 PM |

ASRM: Gospel

I’ll be blogging from the meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine – in a nutshell, strange stuff that doctors do with embryos.

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Posted by Helen Pearson at 02:08 AM |

October 20, 2006

American Society for Reproductive Medicine

Helen Pearson finds out the latest from scientists devoted to making embryos. Read her diary reports from New Orleans, Louisiana, from 22-25 October, here in our newsblog.

Posted by Nicola Jones at 11:33 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

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