Moshe Zilberstein

Umbilical-cord-blood banking: lessons learned from gamete donation

Cord blood stored at birth may be used to treat disorders in later life. Commercial companies advertise this message to prospective parents; cord blood can be collected and processed for about

Transvaginal Amniotic Puncture for Cytogenetic Evaluation of Missed Abortions

1500 and

Fertilization and implantation

95 annually for storage. 3,4 This practice stirs controversy and raises ethical questions. First, will the stored blood be used for the exclusive use of the individual donor? A parent’s decision to use stored cord blood for the treatment of anyone other than the baby (such as a sibling or themselves) raises questions of conflict of interest. If autologous storing becomes standard, will parents or the government be mandated to retain cord blood for every baby and bear the expense? If so, should parents be permitted to donate their infant’s cord blood to another person without ensuring the future availability to the child. 2 How will private cord

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis of chromosome balance in embryos from a patient with a balanced reciprocal translocation.

Transvaginal amniotic puncture (TAP) was performed on 20 consecutive missed abortions immediately prior to dilatation and evacuation and the cytogenetic results compared. The information received from products of conception (POC) and TAP was in concordance in only 5 of 20 (25%) cases. Tissue obtained from POC yielded cells in all instances. However, only 3 of 20 POC samples yielded findings other than normal female. In contrast, 92.8% of the conclusive diagnoses would have been achieved by TAP alone. These data strongly suggest that TAP is superior to POC for accurate cytogenetic assessment of missed abortion and should lead to a reevaluation of our current understanding and management of pregnancy loss.

Preimplantation development of mouse and human embryos biopsied at cleavage stages using a modified displacement technique.

Recent advances in seemingly remote areas of investigation, i.e. yeast cell cycle research and DNA amplifications, have opened spectacular avenues for understanding reproduction. The new insights on the single cell and subcellular level of processes, such as egg maturation, sperm-egg interaction and implantation enhance, immensely, the power of assisted fertilization. These techniques, have become the mainstay of infertility therapy. This review focuses on the recent developments in these areas.