Egg sharing: Women to get help with IVF treatment costs for donating eggs to research.

Women will be offered reduced cost IVF treatment in return for donating some of their eggs for research. The scheme in Newcastle, which is the first of its type in the world, has today been funded by the Medical Research Council. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) agreed in July last year that researchers could proceed with the practice, known as egg sharing. This was confirmed after a public consultation in January 2007. Under the scheme the research team can contribute about half of the cost of a patient’s IVF treatment, £1500, in return for the donation of half of her eggs. The eggs would be used in a field of stem cell research known as nuclear re-programming, or therapeutic cloning with the aim of deriving human embryonic stem cells. Cells derived from these embryonic stem cells may in the future be used in treatment without being rejected by the patient’s immune system. The team, from the North East England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI) believes the funding will lead to an increase in the number of eggs for research which could lead to faster progress in stem cell therapies. Scientists from Newcastle and Durham Universities are currently studying the potential of stem cells to understand and treat conditions such as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease as well as diseases of the blood and liver.In 2005 the team gained approval from the local ethics committee and the HFEA to ask IVF patients to donate two fresh eggs to research if they had more than 12 eggs collected for their treatment. Researchers say however, that the number of eggs donated has been too small to allow the work to progress rapidly, and existing practice provided only 66 eggs in seven months. Now women who fulfil strict criteria will, after a process of counselling and screening, have the option of receiving IVF treatment at a reduced cost in return for donation of half of their eggs. In this study, the MRC is supplying funding only for women who need IVF treatment because of infertility and are between 21 and 35 years old. Priority will be given to couples in the Northern Region who would be having treatment at the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life. It will involve no additional tests from those for the woman’s treatment and all eggs will be shared equally. Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life is part of the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Professor Alison Murdoch who is Head of Department at the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life says, “I’m delighted at the MRC funding which allows us to recompense women who wish to donate eggs for their time and trouble. This will ease the financial burden for women who require IVF. There is no additional physical risk to the woman as a result of egg sharing.”


“Volunteers have been essential to medical research for many years and this is a way of engaging volunteers from a wider field in a research project. Like all UK research, it will be strictly regulated at a local and national level by ethics committees and the principals of research governance.” “Of course, all potential donors who come to Newcastle will be thoroughly counselled to ensure they understand the full implications of the procedure for egg sharing. We expect this to open the door to some infertile women who may now find it less difficult to meet the cost of IVF.” Dr Mary Herbert who is Reader in Reproductive Biology at Newcastle University and will lead the scientific team in this study says, “This major step forward will enable us to make real progress towards our goal of improving the efficiency of therapeutic cloning in humans. The availability of freshly harvested human eggs will also enable us to directly address a number of important questions related to the underlying causes of infertility and birth defects, which were previously difficult to study.” Professor Michael Whitaker, the chair of NESCI (North East England Stem Cell Institute) based at the Centre for Life says, “Scientists in Newcastle were the first to successfully clone a human embryo but one of the problems we’re now facing in stem cell research is the necessarily limited availability of human eggs. Egg donation helps us solve the practical problem of how best to make human embryonic stem cells. Last week we heard that we can now use human genetic material in animal eggs for research into the basic mechanisms of human stem cell development and now, with more human eggs becoming available, researchers will be able to develop more stem cell lines. We hope that in time, and by this I mean ten years or more, this will lead us to better understanding and possible treatment of many life-limiting conditions such as Parkinson's and Motor Neurone disease.” The MRC will also be funding an independent social science study on the egg donors led by Professor Erica Haimes from PEALS (Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences) at Newcastle University.

Women who are interested in becoming a donor should look at the “Information Leaflet for Egg Sharing for Research” and the form on www.nesci.ac.uk

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