Researchers at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (ASHBi) at Kyoto University have made a breakthrough in understanding the mechanisms driving epigenetic reprogramming and differentiation during human germ cell development. The study, published in Nature, could lead to new treatments for infertility, affecting approximately one in six…

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have discovered that a protein from the mycoplasma bacterium species may cause genetic instability leading to reduced fertility and birth defects in mice models. With over 100 different species, mycoplasma is a unique bacterium responsible for several symptoms and infections…

Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University have discovered a prevalence of disease-causing gene variants in women with unexplained infertility using exome sequencing. In a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers sequenced the exomes, which are DNA regions containing the protein-coding regions…

A mutation in a single gene, PNLDC1, appears to account for a form of male infertility in which men fail to produce sperm, according to an international study. This study suggests a direct mechanistic effect of faulty piRNA processing on meiosis and spermatogenesis in men, ultimately causing male infertility. The…

A study carried out by Estonian and U.K. researchers has discovered a structural variant in the Y-chromosome that predisposes men who carry it to be infertile. The research team, co-led by Maris Laan, Ph.D., a professor of human genetics at the University of Tartu in Estonia and Chris Tyler-Smith, Ph.D.,…

Scientists based at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) have used single-cell technology to study changes in gene expression that occur in stem cells that differentiate into sperm. The scientists report that they have distinguished 11 cell types on the basis of transcriptomic profiles. Additional work, the scientists…

Reproductive health-focused epigenetics information company Episona has launched what the company says is the first direct-to-consumer, epigenetics test to evaluate male infertility. The test, called Seed, may now be requested online by consumers who can also receive complementary genetic counseling services from Gene Matters. “Since Seed was launched a year…

Many couples who struggle with infertility also suffer uncertainty. Infertility may arise from paternal or maternal factors, or both. When this uncertainty persists, couples may be unable to start the most appropriate fertility treatments. And the birth of a healthy child may be delayed. To help resolve uncertainty—and guide prospective…

Certain rare variants have around five times larger effects on menopause timing than do previously identified common variants. Those rare variants included ETAA1, ZNF518A, PNPLA8, PALB2, and SAMHD1. A British research team mined UK BioBank data for this study, which appeared in Nature. Further, they found that damaging germline variants…

Research led by the University of Iceland and deCODE genetics has discovered a genetic variant that appears to significantly increase a woman’s risk of early menopause. The single nucleotide variant, known as rs117316434(A), results in a shortened protein being translated from the CCDC201 gene, which is highly expressed in egg cells.…

A non-hormonal pill can improve the chances of pregnancy and live births for women undergoing assisted reproductive treatments compared with placebo, initial findings from a phase II trial show. OXO-001 is the first drug of its kind and acts to make the innermost lining of the uterus more conducive to…

Women’s health is chronically underfunded both in the public and private sectors and has been for many years. No one knows this better than Piraye Yurttas Beim, CEO and founder of Celmatix, a women’s health biotech company focused on improving ovarian health. Since founding Celmatix in 2009, she has been…

Thermo Fisher Scientific this week launched two new next-generation sequencing-based research tools for preimplantation genetic testing-aneuploidy (PGT-A). This type of testing is used for in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). The Ion ReproSeq PGT-A Kit and the Ion AmpliSeq Polyploidy Kit are the first research use reproductive health…

U.K. techbio PrecisionLife has entered into a data access agreement with the University of Oxford to discover personalized treatments for women with endometriosis. The company is licensing the Oxford Endometriosis Gene (OXEGENE) dataset in the hope of identifying genetic differences between women with endometriosis and the underlying mechanisms driving their…

A targeted therapy has significantly reduced relapse rates among children with high-risk Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL) in a multicenter clinical trial. Patients who received the targeted antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) brentuximab vedotin (BV), with the standard chemotherapy regimen, were 10% less likely to relapse. The findings were published in the New England…