The perils of creating synthetic life

As an ex-genetic researcher I was incredibly excited to hear in last week's news that researchers at the J Craig Venter Institute, US, have successfully constructed the first self-replicating, synthetic bacterial cell.... [Read More]

TV Review: Horizon: Horizon - The Truth about Fat

Last week's Horizon on BBC2, 'The truth about fat', follows surgeon Gabriel Weston as she looks at the latest research exploring why so many people are clinically obese... [Read More]

Film Review: Splice

From watching the trailers for Splice, I thought the film centred on a genetic engineering experiment gone awry - mutants taking over the world and so on. Sadly not. At least if it had, it would be based on a storyline which - although tiresome - is proven to work. Not only that, but this horror of a horror film was far from scary... [Read More]

Event Review: Francis Galton and Francis Crick - Cases of Mistaken Identity?

This small session, convened in the Wellcome Trust's Library last Wednesday, was the tale of two Francis's. The discussion highlighted the lives of, and drew on the similarities between, Francis Galton - who coined the term eugenics - and Francis Crick - who determined the structure of DNA with James Watson... [Read More]

Radio Review: Moral Maze

'IVF doctors to raffle human egg' ran the Sunday Times headline on 14 March 2010. A seminar sponsored by an American clinic took place in London at which a human egg and a cycle of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment was awarded to one couple who attended... [Read More]

Film Review: Extraordinary Measures

Extraordinary Measures is the story of the desperation of a father to find a drug to prolong the lives of his sick children, Megan and Patrick, who both have an incurable genetic condition with a life expectancy of nine years of age.... [Read More]

Exhibition Review: Identity - Eight Rooms, Nine Lives

Can you identify yourself? How? By your name, sex, religion, by what you do, or the relationships you form? These are the types of unenviable and arguably unanswerable questions the Wellcome Trust asks in its current Exhibition 8 Rooms, 9 Lives. The exhibition does not set out to answer questions about identity (and with good reason). However, wandering through the myriad of rooms the exhibition displays, through a series of individual life stories, brings to life at least some of the

Study sparks debate: should embryo cryopreservation be routine in IVF?

Women who undergo fertility treatment using cryopreserved embryos may have healthier babies and fewer complications than those who use 'fresh' embryos, a study suggests.... [Read More]

IVF single embryo transfers have better chance of survival

Single embryo transfer reduces the risk of death within a month of birth for babies conceived via IVF, according to an Australian study... [Read More]

IVF treatment rises six percent in a year

There was a six percent rise last year in the number of fertility treatments carried out in the UK, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA)... [Read More]

Social class behind brainy IVF babies

New research has shown that socio-economic status plays a bigger role in a child's development than whether that child was born after a planned pregnancy... [Read More]

New MRSA strain not picked up by current genetic tests

A group of British and Danish scientists has identified a new strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which has been found in cows and their milk. The new strain is also known to have infected 27 people in the UK and 24 in Denmark... [Read More]

Mice sperm cells grown in the lab

Researchers in Japan have successfully grown sperm for the first time in a study that could eventually help preserve the fertility of cancer patients and help infertile men have children.... [Read More]

Online tool for predicting IVF success launched

Researchers have developed a calculator that they claim can be used to provide people who are having fertility problems with an assessment of the likelihood of having a successful outcome following IVF... [Read More]

UK stem cell report published

More than 200 patients' lives could be saved each year following recommendations published in a new report, focusing on improving the availability and quality of stem cell transplants in the UK... [Read More]

First major study of comprehensive genetic screening technique

The first formal clinical study of a test that screens an eggs for chromosomal abnormalities - the main cause of non-viable embryos during IVF - has been conducted. This may help pave the way for women with a history of IVF failure to achieve successful pregnancies... [Read More]

£20 million study comparing the epigenetics of twins launched

Scientists from the UK and China are collaborating to study epigenetic signatures that mark the differences between 5,000 twins. Those affected by diabetics and osteoporosis are just some of the people who could be set to benefit from the £20 million 'Epitwin' project.... [Read More]