Share your eggs and get half-price IVF
(sz) Scientists are offering infertile Wearside women half-price IVF treatment in return for donating some of their eggs for research.
Women from Sunderland and Durham are being sought for the scheme – known as egg sharing – which is being offered by the North East England Stem Cell Institute (Nesci) and the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life.
Under the scheme, the Nesci research team can contribute about half of the cost of a patient’s IVF treatment – £1,500 – in return for the donation of half of her eggs.
There have been 15 volunteers from the North East who have come forward and are now undergoing treatment, although none is yet from the Wearside area.
Professor Alison Murdoch, head of department at the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life, said: “Volunteers have been essential to medical research for many years and this is a way of engaging volunteers from a wider field in a research project.
“Like all UK research, it will be strictly regulated at a local and national level by ethics committees and the principals of research governance.
“We expect this to open the door to some infertile women who may now find it less difficult to meet the cost of IVF.” more…
From: »The Sunderland Echo«