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Thursday 22 Oct 2015 - 12:24 Makkah mean time-9-1-1437
Adelaide (IINA) – A breakthrough in fertility research by a team of Australian scientists at the University of Adelaide could help thousands of women attempting to have children, the Herald Sun reported.
The team at the university’s Robinson Research Institute run by Dr Hannah Brown found hemoglobin played a fundamental role in the fertility of an egg.
The team discovered hemoglobin was present in good eggs but was missing from bad eggs.
“The hemoglobin inside the eggs made them more efficient and looks like it alters the way the egg uses energy and the amount (it) needs to use,” Dr Brown said about the discovery.
“When we added the hemoglobin to bad eggs and then fertilized those eggs (via IVF), we got more healthy embryos,” Dr Brown said, adding: “We improved the quality of the eggs".
The team have run successful trials on mice as it is illegal in Australia to run trials on humans. Trials on humans have now begun in Belgium where it is legal for women to donate eggs for scientific tests.
The next step for the Adelaide team is to trial the process on larger animals such as pigs or cows where they can “test the safety and ethics and make sure there are no problems with the offspring," Dr Brown said.
If the trials are successful, Dr Brown said, she hopes the process will become available to the public within five years.
“We know fertility starts declining at 32, and between 37 and 42 your eggs are in dramatic decline and the ones you have left are of poor quality,” Dr Brown said, claiming she wants this new process to provide hope and new opportunities to those women.
AB/IINA
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