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A Big Step Toward Restoring Female Cancer Patients' Fertility

Posted on: Monday, 3 May 2004, 06:00 CDT

A NASA-inspired technology that simulates weightlessness could be used to improve the fertility of female cancer patients.

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine have discovered a method for growing cells that they believe could be used to allow women made infertile from chemotherapy or other cancer therapies to have biological children. The method is reported in the current issue of the journal Tissue Engineering.

Many cancer treatments damage ovaries and can impair fertility. Working with mice and rat tissue, the Pitt scientists focused on groups of ovarian cells known as follicles. These are the cells that contain and eventually release eggs during ovulation.

An entire ovary or ovarian tissue sample can be removed and frozen before cancer treatment with the intent of transplanting them back later or growing eggs in the lab for in vitro fertilization, said Dr. Elizabeth McGee, a Pitt specialist in obstetrics/ gynecology.

That's been the idea, said McGee, but in reality it has turned out to be difficult to achieve.

"All over the world there have been centers that have been freezing these ovarian biopsies," she said. "But there is no technology currently to grow this tissue that has resulted in reliable, mature reproductive tissues."

Immature follicles can be retrieved from frozen ovarian tissue, but getting them to grow in the lab has been a struggle. When these cells touch surfaces, they attach and spread out to fill the available space, becoming distorted and eventually collapsing.

"They would suspend (the follicle) in a little dish and it would sink to the bottom," said Alan Russell, director of the Pitt institute.

"It would flatten on the bottom of the dish and gently burst."

The researchers wanted to figure out how to avoid this and get the immature follicle to the next critical stage of development, called the antral transition.

In it, the ball of cells surrounding the egg grows larger and a fluid-filled space develops within the follicle. They wanted to grow the cells in a way that prevents contact and permits natural development.

To do this, the Pitt scientists built a cellular "bioreactor" based on NASA's technology for simulating weightlessness in astronaut training. Operated something like a tumble dryer, the container slowly revolves while the follicle cells are floated in a liquid, nutrient-rich suspension.

Based on the preliminary results, "we do believe we'll be able to get through the antral transition, which is a major step," Russell said. "If we can get through that, then getting to fully developed (eggs) may become possible."

The next steps include fine-tuning the reactor and establishing a more complex cocktail of hormones, such as follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone, needed for further development.

In other health news:

Increased carbon dioxide and plant pollen levels attributed to global warming may be increasing the severity of allergies and asthma, particularly among inner-city children, according to a report released Thursday by Harvard University researchers and the American Public Health Association.

More consumer warnings of dangerous pathogens in the food supply and a government crackdown on meat processors resulted in a 36 percent reduction in infections by a dangerous E. coli pathogen last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

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