Fertility Content / Fertility Content for ºÙºÙÊÓƵ en Transparent Worms with Glowing Proteins May Help Fertility Treatments /news/transparent-worms-glowing-proteins-may-help-fertility-treatments <p><span>The development of maternal egg cells is pivotal for survival – but also precarious. During meiosis, the DNA-containing chromosomes can easily be broken or lost, causing infertility, miscarriage or genetic disorders like Down syndrome. Scientists have struggled to study these crucial cellular events in humans and other mammals.</span></p> November 21, 2024 - 2:03pm Andy Fell /news/transparent-worms-glowing-proteins-may-help-fertility-treatments Invisible Anatomy in the Fruit Fly Uterus /news/invisible-anatomy-fruit-fly-uterus <p>You have likely not spent much time thinking about the uterus of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. But then, neither have most scientists, even though Drosophila is one of the most thoroughly studied lab animals. Now a team of biologists at the University of California, Davis, has taken the first deep look at the Drosophila uterus and found some surprises, which could have implications not just for understanding insect reproduction and potentially, pest control, but also for understanding fertility in humans.&nbsp;</p> October 25, 2024 - 11:06am Andy Fell /news/invisible-anatomy-fruit-fly-uterus Protein Integral to Sperm Development and Male Fertility Identified /blog/protein-integral-sperm-development-and-male-fertility-identified <p><span><span><span><span><span><span>Early in the development of sperm, a strange event happens: the X and Y chromosomes condense into tight packages and are sequestered away from the other 44 human chromosomes. If any part of this process goes awry, the cells cannot mature into sperm. Researchers in the ºÙºÙÊÓƵ College of Biological Sciences have now identified an important link in this process — a little-known protein called ATF7IP2.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p> February 21, 2024 - 3:20pm Andy Fell /blog/protein-integral-sperm-development-and-male-fertility-identified Immune Cells Drive Sex Reversal in Zebrafish – and Perhaps Fertility Loss in Women /blog/immune-cells-drive-sex-reversal-zebrafish-and-perhaps-fertility-loss-women <p><span><span><span><span><span><span>Female zebrafish (<em>Danio rerio</em>) have an unusual tendency: if their egg cells are damaged, they can turn into males. Bruce Draper, a professor in the ºÙºÙÊÓƵ Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Florence Marlow, a professor at </span></span><span><span>the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai</span></span><span><span>, have discovered that immune cells called macrophages play a key role in this process.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p> December 11, 2023 - 10:01am Andy Fell /blog/immune-cells-drive-sex-reversal-zebrafish-and-perhaps-fertility-loss-women Hitting Reset to Start a New Embryo /blog/hitting-reset-start-new-embryo <p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>New work by scientists in the U.S. and China shows how a fertilized egg cell, or zygote, hits ‘reset’ so that the newly formed embryo can develop according to its own genetic program. The study was published July 17 in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06428-3">Nature</a>. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> July 19, 2023 - 10:38am Andy Fell /blog/hitting-reset-start-new-embryo Study Reveals How the Ovarian Reserve Is Established /health/news/study-reveals-how-ovarian-reserve-established <p class="BodyA"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Fertility is finite for mammalian females. From birth, females possess a limited number of primordial follicles, collectively called the ovarian reserve. Within each follicle is an oocyte that eventually becomes an egg. But with age, the follicles in the ovarian reserve decrease. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> August 10, 2022 - 8:20am Andy Fell /health/news/study-reveals-how-ovarian-reserve-established