China unveils new test-tube baby technology
( 2002-09-04 11:21 ) (8 )

In a step forward for reproduction research, China announced Tuesday that it has mastered the fourth- generation of test-tube baby technology.

The technology is targeted at women who are capable of ovulation but can not produce high-quality eggs because of poor health or advanced age, according to its inventor, Dr. Liu Jia'en, from Wuhan University's People's Hospital in central China's Hubei Province.

According to Liu, the vitality of a targeted ovum can be enhanced by replacing its ovoplasm with the healthy ovoplasm of another woman. The targeted ovum becomes fertilized in vetro and then moved into the womb of the woman wanting to get pregnant but needing external help because of poor health or advanced age.

Experiments have proven that after this process of ovoplasm substitution, the targeted ovum still bears the hereditary features of the woman wanting to get pregnant and shows no change in genetic information, said Liu.

Thanks to the new technology, the pregnancy success rate of women with low-quality ova is over 40 percent, compared to less than 10 percent using previous test-tube baby technologies, said Liu.

Liu, a well-known expert on reproduction, is also the inventor of the second-generation (injection of a single sperm inside the ovoplasm) and the third-generation (diagnosis of hereditary diseases before implantation of the embryo) test-tube baby technologies.