Egg sharing to research
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Establishing a programme of egg sharing to research.
IRAS ID
255896
Contact name
Geraldine Hartshorne
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Warwick
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 10 months, 30 days
Research summary
Our research programme aims to understand molecular events at the beginning of human life. We perform basic scientific research that will underpin future improvements to fertility treatments and explain what happens when problems arise, such as genetic abnormalities.
To date, we have relied solely upon studying eggs and embryos of insufficient quality for patient treatment, that would otherwise be discarded. Therefore, our results are sometimes challenged as lacking relevance to the ‘normal’ situation.
This application aims to open up a new source of 'high quality', potentially normal human eggs for research use. This initial pilot study will provide important preliminary evidence about whether the 'high quality' eggs differ from our current source and it will test the feasibility of our procedures.
We have gained research funding to subsidise three women’s IVF treatment. In return, they would provide half of their collected eggs for use in research, while keeping half for their own treatment. This principle was approved previously for other UK centres, by ethics committees and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. We are currently applying for specific permissions for our project to access eggs from this source.
This new arrangement would provide good quality eggs for research use, benefiting the research in two ways: first, providing ‘gold standard’ control eggs, most likely to be ‘normal’, against which to compare results with eggs derived from other sources. Second, it would demonstrate our ability to source good quality eggs from young women. We are currently engaged in other funding applications and research plans. Having a source of 'high quality' research eggs would strengthen our applications and demonstrate capacity as well as increasing the robustness of the research conducted.REC name
West Midlands - Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/WM/0003
Date of REC Opinion
28 Feb 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion