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1 week ago | 
progress.org.uk | Joanne Delange
The UK Supreme Court's recent judgment on the meaning of 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 has generated significant attention – and a lot of misinformation. What was the Supreme Court case about? It started with a piece of 2018 Scottish legislation which required public boards to include 50 percent women.
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1 week ago | 
progress.org.uk | Joanne Delange
As a current student in year 12 in the UK, I felt honoured to be asked to review a webinar aimed at 14 to 16 year olds for BioNews. 'Ancient DNA, excavating fact from fiction!', part of Wellcome Connecting Science's Genomics Lite programme of digital events and live webinars, aimed to explain the different methods of ancient and historical DNA extraction and analysis through age-appropriate explanations and examples.
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1 week ago | 
progress.org.uk | Joanne Delange
The most recent PET (Progress Educational Trust) event – 'IVF and Miscarriage: Reducing Risks, Providing Support' – explored pregnancy loss in relation to fertility treatment, including how to reduce risks and provide appropriate support. The event was produced in partnership with the Scottish Government. Sarah Norcross, director of PET, chaired the event and shared some introductory facts about miscarriage and pregnancy loss.
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1 week ago | 
progress.org.uk | Joanne Delange
A gene variant that increases the risk that a person will develop long COVID has been identified in a large scale genetic study. People who carry the variant are around 60 percent more likely to develop long COVID following infection by the SARS-Co-V2 virus – which caused the COVID-19 pandemic – according to research published in Nature.
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1 week ago | 
progress.org.uk | Joanne Delange
Gonadotrophs, cells in the pituitary gland involved in regulating puberty and reproduction, have a dual origin and are primarily produced after birth in mice, researchers have found. Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute, London, aimed to understand how gonadotrophs are produced in mice by characterising stem cell differentiation in the pituitary gland (see BioNews 488).
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1 week ago | 
progress.org.uk | Joanne Delange
A new method for tracking the lineage and type of different blood cells in humans has shown how ageing changes the make-up of blood. Blood has a reservoir of stem cells that in young adults can replenish up to 200 billion new red, white or platelet cells every day.
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2 weeks ago | 
progress.org.uk | Joanne Delange
Understanding the intricacies of human embryonic development is a longstanding aim of biological research. Advances in IVF have allowed closer observations of preimplantation human development – the progression from a single fertilised oocyte to a blastocyst that can potentially implant in the uterus.
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2 weeks ago | 
progress.org.uk | Joanne Delange
A prolific sperm donor has been refused parental responsibility and contact with two children he fathered through 'natural insemination'. Local Authorities initiated care proceedings for two children, referred to as CA and CB, who share a genetic father, prolific sperm donor Robert Albon. Both children were born following 'natural insemination', meaning Albon had sexual intercourse with their mothers, after Albon advertised his services online.
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2 weeks ago | 
progress.org.uk | Joanne Delange
A baby born with a rare genetic liver disease has received the world's first customised experimental treatment that involved directly repairing his DNA to fix a faulty protein. The baby was born with a unique mutation in the gene encoding the CPS1 enzyme, which leads to toxic accumulation of protein waste products from digestion. The rare metabolic disease, known as severe carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1 (CPS1) deficiency, results in death in half of those affected.
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2 weeks ago | 
progress.org.uk | Joanne Delange
The UK Government has postponed proposed updates to 40-year-old surrogacy legislation. The Law Commission of England and Wales published a joint report with the Scottish Law Commission in 2023, proposing comprehensive reforms of surrogacy law in the UK. However, the UK Government has now confirmed that while it supports surrogacy and welcomes the Law Commissions' report, it has decided to postpone surrogacy legislation reform.
