Landmark definition on start of life

Press, 19 December 1986, Page 14

Landmark definition on start of life

By

NICK BROWN

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney A landmark definition of the start of human life has reportedly been made in Victoria, enabling Melbourne’s in-vitro fertilisation research team to resume pioneering work on test-tube babies. The chairman of Monash University’s obstetrics and gynaecology department, Professor Carl Wood, said he had received informal confirmation that the Victorian Standing Review and Advisory Committee on Infertility had decided cells achieve embryo status 20 hours after fertilisation. The researchers had been threatened with up to four years imprisonment for conducting human embryo research, under a state law which took effect in August. The law stopped virtually all I.V.F. research in Victoria and led to the Melbourne scientists, acknowledged as world leaders in the field, considering lucrative offers to join I.V.F. research programmes overseas.

Now it appears they

will be able to continue the work which has delivered some 500 test tube babies since 1977. Professor Wood, according to the “Australian” newspaper, said the committee’s decision was an extremely important breakthrough. “It means that all projects held up for the last 18 months can go ahead,” he said. The legislation bans all research on embryos except that approved by the committee. Professor Wood said the committee’s decision would allow treatment of men with severe infertility and perfection of gamete freezing methods. Applications to the committee for permission to study embryos after freezing had been refused, but then the researchers exposed a gap in the legislation — there was no definition of what constituted an embryo. Various groups around the world have different definitions of when an embryo is formed — some say it exists at fertilisation, some when the male and female genetic material fuses at 20 hours and others say at the time

the brain and organs begin to form at 14 days. “The committee did view some material under the microscope,” Professor Wood said. “What was holding up the whole thing in Victoria was the concept that once the sperm head passes into the shell of the egg — that was the beginning of life. “That is an important step but there are a number of other important steps. If status is moved to 20 hours, I can see a move further.” He said he would like the way cleared for experimentation on fertilised eggs up to 14 days old.