Human blastocyst-derived, pluripotent cell lines are described that have normal karyotypes, express high levels of telomerase activity, and express cell surface markers that characterize primate embryonic stem cells but do not characterize other early lineages. After undifferentiated proliferation in vitro for 4 to 5 months, these cells still maintained the developmental potential to form trophoblast and derivatives of all three embryonic germ layers, including gut epithelium (endoderm); cartilage, bone, smooth muscle, and striated muscle (mesoderm); and neural epithelium, embryonic ganglia, and stratified squamous epithelium (ectoderm). These cell lines should be useful in human developmental biology, drug discovery, and transplantation medicine.

Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Blastocysts

BIOE 402. Medical Technology Assessment. 2 or 3 hours. Bioentrepreneur course. Assessment of medical technology in the context of commercialization. Objectives, competition, market share, funding, pricing, manufacturing, growth, and intellectual property; many issues unique to biomedical products. Course Information: 2 undergraduate hours. 3 graduate hours. Prerequisite(s): Junior standing or above and consent of the instructor.

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Fertilization of mammalian eggs is followed by successive cell divisions and progressive differentiation, first into the early embryo and subsequently into all of the cell types that make up the adult animal. Transfer of a single nucleus at a specific stage of development, to an enucleated unfertilized egg, provided an opportunity to investigate whether cellular differentiation to that stage involved irreversible genetic modification. The first offspring to develop from a differentiated cell were born after nuclear transfer from an embryo-derived cell line that had been induced to become quiescent. Using the same procedure, we now report the birth of live lambs from three new cell populations established from adult mammary gland, fetus and embryo. The fact that a lamb was derived from an adult cell confirms that differentiation of that cell did not involve the irreversible modification of genetic material required for development to term. The birth of lambs from differentiated fetal and adult cells also reinforces previous speculation that by inducing donor cells to become quiescent it will be possible to obtain normal development from a wide variety of differentiated cells.

Viable offspring derived from fetal and adult mammalian cells

A high-throughput protocol was developed for the synthesis of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs). Twenty-five different ZIF crystals were synthesized from only 9600 microreactions of either zinc(II)/cobalt(II) and imidazolate/imidazolate-type linkers. All of the ZIF structures have tetrahedral frameworks: 10 of which have two different links (heterolinks), 16 of which are previously unobserved compositions and structures, and 5 of which have topologies as yet unobserved in zeolites. Members of a selection of these ZIFs (termed ZIF-68, ZIF-69, and ZIF-70) have high thermal stability (up to 390°C) and chemical stability in refluxing organic and aqueous media. Their frameworks have high porosity (with surface areas up to 1970 square meters per gram), and they exhibit unusual selectivity for CO 2 capture from CO 2 /CO mixtures and extraordinary capacity for storing CO 2 : 1 liter of ZIF-69 can hold ∼83 liters of CO 2 at 273 kelvin under ambient pressure.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/319/5865/939.full.pdf

High-throughput synthesis of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks and application to CO2 capture.

Hyperglycemia and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes

https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(00)00518-5/pdf

Blastocyst score affects implantation and pregnancy outcome: towards a single blastocyst transfer

Background: Many variations in oocyte and embryo grading make inter-laboratory comparisons extremely difficult. This paper reports the proceedings of an international consensus meeting on oocyte and embryo morphology assessment.
Methods: Background presentations about current practice were given.
Results: The expert panel developed a set of consensus points to define the minimumcriteria for oocyte and embryomorphology assessment.
Conclusions: It is expected that the definition of common terminology and standardization of laboratory practice related to embryo morphology assessment will result in more effective comparisons of treatment outcomes. This document is intended to be referenced as a global consensus to allow standardized reporting of the minimum data set required for the accurate description of embryo development.

The Istanbul consensus workshop on embryo assessment: proceedings of an expert meeting

In vitro culture of human blastocysts

The effectiveness of blastocyst culture and transfer in human in-vitro fertilization (IVF) was evaluated in a prospective randomized trial in patients having a moderate to good response to gonadotrophin stimulation. Embryos were transferred either on day 3 after culture to around the 8-cell stage in Ham's F-10 medium supplemented with fetal cord serum, or on day 5 after culture to the blastocyst stage in the sequential serum-free media G 1.2 and G 2.2. The pregnancy rates after transfer on day 3 or day 5 were equivalent, 66 and 71% respectively; however, significantly more embryos were transferred on day 3 (3.7) than on day 5 (2.2). The number of blastocysts transferred did not affect the implantation rate, and pregnancy rates when either two or three blastocysts were transferred were 68 and 87% respectively. The implantation rate of the blastocysts (50.5% fetal heart beat) was significantly higher compared to the cleavage stage embryos transferred on day 3 (30.1%). The percentage of blastocyst development was not affected by the number of 2-pronuclear embryos, or by maternal age. Irrespective of the number of blastocysts formed, pregnancy rates were similar. Furthermore, the pregnancy rate following blastocyst transfer in patients with 10 or more follicles at the time of human chorionic gonadotrophin administration was not affected by patient age. More than 60% of patients having blastocyst culture and transfer had supernumerary embryos for cryopreservation. The establishment of a pregnancy following thaw and transfer confirmed the viability of cryopreserved blastocysts cultured in the absence of serum or co-culture. The ability to transfer just two blastocysts while maintaining high pregnancy rates will therefore help to eliminate high order multiple gestations and improve the overall efficiency of human IVF.

/pdf/a-prospective-randomized-trial-of-blastocyst-culture-and-j2g9jptfdm.pdf

David K. Gardner

Papers

Blastocyst score affects implantation and pregnancy outcome: towards a single blastocyst transfer

The Istanbul consensus workshop on embryo assessment: proceedings of an expert meeting

In vitro culture of human blastocysts

A prospective randomized trial of blastocyst culture and transfer in in-vitro fertilization.

Culture and transfer of human blastocysts increases implantation rates and reduces the need for multiple embryo transfers