By Farzana Paleker An uptick in the use of heroin (and the sharing of dirty needles) has resulted in a 50% increase in the number of cases of recurrent heart valve disease. This phenomenon has presented Florida heart surgeons with an ethical dilemma: continue to provide these patients with expensive treatment, or turn them away. This increase, [...]

By Kaitlyn Schaeffer Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Rene Tamjina-Pena’s latest documentary details the horrific story of several Mexican women who were sterilized in US hospitals during the 1960s and 1970s. No Mas Bebes depicts the women, often young, afraid, and unable to speak English, and explains how they ended up on operating tables despite a lack of [...]

By Raya Bidshahri The Francis Crick institute has been granted permission to genetically modify leftover embryos from IVF clinics. This is not the first time that researchers have been given approval to modify embryos. In April 2015, a group of Chinese scientists were granted approval to modify the gene responsible for  β-thalassaemia, a potentially fatal blood disorder. [...]

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By Ellen Arkfeld Last year, Jennifer Duodna made headlines by developing CRISPR-cas9 technology, a genome-editing technique unprecedented in its precision, ease, and cost. With CRISPR, introducing a new gene to a genome is essentially as easy as mixing chemicals in a vial. Josiah Zayner has taken this technology to the next level: all of this [...]

By Farzana Paleker An advertising campaign recently launched in Belgium calls on creative types to donate their sperm and eggs in an effort to guarantee the country’s creative future. Creative Belgium, an organization that aims to improve creativity in advertising in Belgium, has teamed up with the Centre for Reproductive Medicine of Brussels and the advertising [...]

By Princess Chukwuneke In a time where egg and sperm donations face rigorous screening, Simon Watson, 41, appears to have found a way around it. Watson has been an unlicensed sperm donor for 16 years, claiming dual benevolence for his actions. On one hand, he hopes to save prospective mothers from paying exorbitant treatment prices [...]

By Kaitlyn Schaeffer Last year 30,973 transplants were performed in the US, setting a record for the procedure, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. This number represents nearly a 5% increase from 2014. “This landmark achievement is a testament to the generosity of the American public to help others through donation, and their [...]

By Ellen Arkfeld In a conventional In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) treatment, zygotes develop in an incubator before they are implanted into a woman’s uterus. This incubator is designed to mimic the human body.  Recently, however, physicians developed an alternative method of incubation: instead of using an incubator, the zygotes grow in an INVOcell, a device that is [...]

By Kaitlyn Schaeffer Once upon a time, children could be conceived in only one way. But advances in medical technology have resulted in a number of ways for children to be born; one such method is via surrogacy. Surrogacy has provided a way for single parents or couples who are for some reason unable to [...]