Research

We have several research projects ongoing in the Reproductive Medicine Unit.

We constantly need to improve our methods of overcoming all types of infertility and to do that we need to carry out research into new treatments. We only have the success we have today because of research carried out in the past.

Use of unfertilised eggs

Sometimes eggs which have been mixed with sperm do not fertilise. These eggs can therefore not be used for your treatment and would normally be discarded. We need to train more scientists in the ICSI procedure. This is where a single sperm is injected into a viable egg in order to achieve fertilisation.

Use of spare embryos

On the day of the embryo transfer, we usually choose one or two of the best embryos for transfer. Poorer quality embryos are not frozen at this stage because they do not survive the thawing process as well as embryos which were frozen a day earlier. Normally they are disposed of humanely. They can however be used for various research purposes including learning more about the conditions which are optimal for growing embryos, and learning how to detect abnormalities in embryos. The embryos are only observed for five days after which they are humanely disposed of. They are never used for the treatment of anyone else.