Last July 25, Louise Brown, turned 30. The day was marked as a major milestone in science and medicine. You see, Louise is the first test tube baby ? the first ever person born through in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Assisted reproduction technology (ART) has come a long way since 1978. Women of menopausal age can now carry and deliver babies. Surrogate mothers or ?wombs for rent? enables women who have undergone hysterectomy to have biological offsprings. Preimplantation genetic diagnostic screening enables parents to screen their embryos for genetic diseases and gender. In April this year, the first ?man? became pregnant and delivered a daughter. So one may ask, where do we go from here?

The 17 July issue of Nature published a special report on ?Making babies: the next 30 years? and interviewed several reproductive medicine experts on what we can expect in the next 30 years. Some of the replies are given below:

• Low-budget IVF – Currently, an IVF cycle can cost thousands of dollars. For the lucky few, it can even be covered by health insurance. There are, however, many countries in this world where IVF is inaccessible financially. By streamlining the procedure and using low-cost drugs, IVF might soon be available to almost anybody.
• Gametes from skin cells – Last year, pluripotent stem cells have been developed from ordinary human skin cells [2]. Research is now being stepped on on the development of gametes from stem cells [3], mainly because of the scarcity of egg donors as well as the legal restrictions associated with egg donations [4]. If this happens within the next 30 years, anybody ? and I mean anybody can have biological offsprings ? and infertility will be a thing of the past.
• Genetic banking – This is the storage of young, healthy cells of people before they start aging and accumulate genetic errors. These cells can be used as ?genetic cassettes? that can be used to correct aging-related errors.
• Artificial wombs – Some researchers are working at the other end of the process ? at delivery. In recent years, premature infants born as early as the 22^nd week of gestation period have been known to survive. The idea of an artificial uterus to carry an embryo to full term is not so far-fetched but can have a lot of ethical and legal implications.
• Cloned babies – According to one expert, reproductive cloning is not that far away although there is no need for it medically.

Louise Brown was a great milestone in science. So was Dolly. I think we can expect great things from reproductive medicine in the coming 3 decades. Maybe even terrible things. But great.

References

1. Nature 454, 260-262 (17 July 2008)
2. Science 318, 1917 – 192021 December 2007
3. Nature 452, 913 (24 April 2008)
4. Nature 453, 828-829 (2008)

July 25th – 30 years ago from today, the first IVF baby was born in Britain. Louise Joy Brown was called the first “test tube baby”, a term that is today considered to be politically incorrect. We’ve come a long way in 30 years. Since then, millions of babies have been brought into this world using assisted reproduction technology (ART). Through ART, we have witnessed postmenopausal women delivering babies, young women earning bucks as “wombs for hire“, and very recently, the first “pregnant father” gives birth to his daughter.

Assisted reproduction has become a billion-dollar service industry. The question is, where does it go from here?

In its July 16 online issue, Nature magazine asked several IVF experts of their expectations for the next 30 years. And their answers range from the hopeful – total eradication of infertility, higher embryonic survival – to the scary – cloning and 100-year-old mommies.

So where is Louise Brown now? She can be seen in this BBC video clip. Louise tells of her life being always the attention of the media. As a child, she was also asked by total strangers bizarre questions like how she could fit in a test tube. Her mom tells about her ordeal of being chased by reporters during her pregnancy. Nowadays, IVF is a routine procedure nobody pays attention unless a celebrity is involved.

Louise conceived naturally and gave birth to her son Cameron who is now 18 months old.

Sources:

Nature 454, 260-262 (2008)

BBC 14 July