IVFing Clever Stuff
Funding granted to pioneer IVF technique.
Newcastle University has received £5.8 million in funding from the Wellcome Trust in order to build a new centre for research into new, pioneering IVF techniques.
Developed in the laboratory by Profs Doug Turnbull and Mary Herbert at the Centre For Life, the techniques utilise nuclear DNA transfer between healthy donor eggs and effected embryos in order to eliminate mitochondrial disease before a child is even born. Incredibly important functional cell orgenelles, mitochondria act as the engine room of a cells metabolism, so deficiencies can be debilitating, even lethal.
Professor Turnbull explained: “Every year, we see hundreds of patients whose lives are seriously affected by mitochondrial diseases. We want to make a major difference to the lives of these patients. This new funding will enable us to take forward essential experiments which we hope will demonstrate to the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) and to the public that these techniques, which are based on existing IVF techniques, are safe and effective.”
The techniques are ground breaking, the researchers world leaders, currently caring 400 patients with mitochondrial diseases at NHS Specialised services clinics in Newcastle and over 1,000 patients at the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life (Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust). The University is already an internationally-renowned institution for mitochondrial research and the Fertility Centre has an international reputation in reproductive biology. This new award is expected to cement their places as world leaders.
Professor Turnbull adds: “With this new funding from the Wellcome Trust and Newcastle University, we aim to develop a Centre which integrates internationally-renowned basic and clinical researchers and trains the next generation of outstanding scientists. We recognise the importance of public support for our work and so will ensure that we open our research for our patients, the public and policy-makers to follow and see what we are trying to achieve”
