A Study in Maryland in the USA found that developmental stoppage occurred in nearly half of the embryos under study due to genetic errors in the early stages of development; this startling finding suggests that more IVF children may be able to adjust to modifications in the fertility treatment procedure. The distinct combination of information from halted embryos also provides new insight into the early, still mostly enigmatic stages of natural conception. A biology professor at John Hopkins University has suggested embryo arrests are coming not from errors in egg formation, but from errors happening in cell divisions after fertilization. The fact that these errors don’t come from the egg suggests that maybe they could be mitigated by changing the way IVF is done. Their findings exemplify how some embryos start growing properly while the maternal genetic material is pre-loaded into the egg control cell division, only to falter and stall when the embryo’s genes take over. Researchers plan to run additional tests on specific cells from arrested embryos to trace the chromosomes’ origins and see whether abnormal cell divisions are linked to maternal or paternal genetics. They also want to better understand if factors such as the chemical composition in the dish where the embryos are grown could improve chances for survival. Some have postulated the problem could be that the chemical composition of the culture medium that is commonly used will not allow all embryos to grow, that the abnormal cell divisions are due to stresses on the egg and early embryo that cause the abnormal divisions associated with chromosome abnormalities.
