Explained Breakthrough that could cut IVF failure rates

The rollercoaster of emotional extremes will be familiar to many who have gone through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment: hope turns to despair and back again.

- Hannah Devlin Science correspondent

For women over 35, IVF success rates decline steeply and the only course of action may be to keep trying.While huge progress has been made in IVF, including the advent of genetic testing, egg freezing and techniques to overcome male infertility, the primary cause of age-related female infertility - egg quality - has not been directly addressed.

Now, groundbreaking research presented at the British Fertility conference in Edinburgh this week suggests progress is on the horizon. Scientists from a leading lab in Germany say they have reversed a common age-related defect in eggs in an advance they predict could change everything.

One of the scientists involved, Dr Agata Zielinska, co-chief executive of Ovo Labs, said: “Currently there are no methods for improving the ageing egg. It is a very large unmet need. This would be a first-in-class solution for improving egg quality.”

Eggs are uniquely vulnerable to ageing as women are born with all the eggs they will ever have. Sperm, in contrast, is continuously generated from stem cells in the testes throughout adult life.