DNA testing

We've come along way in the thirty years since the first IVF baby was born, but the sticking point for scientists and doctors is implantation. We still can't be sure which embryos are most likely to settle into the womb lining and develop, and we don't know why some embryos that look beautiful in the laboratory don't lead to a successful pregnancy.

A research team in Australia have just published some interesting work, taking samples of cells from embryos that have been allowed to develop in the laboratory for about five days, to become what is known as blastocysts, or embryos that are ready to implant. The team used DNA fingerprinting on the cell samples, and the blastocysts were transferred to the patient's wombs as normal. They then took DNA samples from the babies that were born after this, and by comparing them were able to work out which blastocysts were most likely to implant.

It is still very early days with this kind of research, but it does give hope that at some point, fertility treatment will be able to become far more successful, and if we know which embryos or blastocysts are viable, it will also make it easier for patients to avoid the risks of multiple births. The results have been published in Human Reproduction