Donation to science

[Juliet728]

What about donating blastocysts to science? Can anyone help me with that?

[reg.finger]

Just so folks are clear on defintions, a blastocyst is an embryo that has developed to 5 or 6 days beyond fertilization, to the 200+ cell stage. Sometimes patients in IVF programs have embryos that are frozen at this stage, rather than at earlier (2 or 3 day, or "cleavage") stages.

Our program is committed to options for embryos that give them a possibility for life. That is one important motivation for embryo donation. As far as we are aware, the donation of a blastocyst (or any other stage embryo) to science would result in the death of that embryo. Therefore, we do not offer this option at NEDC.

Thanks for asking.