The body that regulates fertility treatment in the UK is considering increasing compensation for egg and sperm donors.

Women who donate eggs are currently paid £250, but this could rise considerably under moves to address egg and sperm shortages at IVF clinics.

Many fertility clinics have long waiting lists, driving some childless couples abroad.

No decision will be made until the end of a public consultation next year.

A spokesperson for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) told the BBC: "We will be looking at a number of issues related to donation policies, one of which will be compensation given to donors. We haven't decided on a figure."

The HFEA is holding a three-month public consultation into its donation policies, starting in January 2011.

It follows concern over the number of Britons travelling to countries such as Spain to receive IVF because of shortages of donated eggs and sperm in the UK.

In the UK, egg and sperm donors cannot be paid but can claim "reasonable expenses" for travel and loss of earnings.

This is limited to a maximum of £250 per cycle of egg donation or course of sperm donation.

Some fertility experts say this is too low to attract donors, and they should be paid more for their time and efforts.

Waiting list

Reports have suggested around £800 or more per cycle of egg donation but this has not been confirmed.

Susan Seenan of the support group, Infertility Network UK, which helps infertile couples, said it was right to look at all the policies surrounding egg and sperm donation.

She said: "We know that many patients are travelling abroad for treatment, often because of the severe lack of sperm and egg donors in the UK.

"Although many patients do receive a high standard care abroad, this is not ideal and the rules and regulations in other countries can be totally different from that in the UK."

She said patients deserved access to safe, regulated treatment in their own country, and there was a need to find some way of increasing the number of both sperm and egg donors in the UK.

Via: bbc.co.uk

Have you ever wondered why most sexually reproducing organisms have two contrasting sex cells: big, immobile eggs in females and plenty of small motile sperms in men? Scientists have at last disclosed the secrets behind the reproductive science.

James Umen and colleagues at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, examined related algae – the single-celled Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the multicellular Volvox carteri, which diverged from each other 200 million years ago.

Both types are known to reproduce sexually under certain conditions. While V. carteri reproduces through the fusion of a large female egg and small male sperm, C. reinhardtii's sex cells are of a same size and cannot be categorized as male or female.

The process in each case is controlled by a genetic sequence known as the Mating Locus, or MT, which the researchers hoped would yield clues as to why the sex cells produced by the two types of algae are poles apart.

The researchers compared the MT regions of both algae by examining the RNA sequences produced by each. They found that although V. carteri's genome is just 17 per cent bigger than that of C. reinhardtii, its MT region is five times larger.

Although, some of the genes identified were common to both, the team identified five new genes present only in V. carteri's female MT and eight new male genes.

Crucially, although these are completely new, the team found similar genes with non-sex roles close to the MT area in the genome of C. Reinhardtii. It looks as if Volvox had translocated these genes into its MT area, and over time they have gained new functions related to sex.

"The genes evolve rapidly in sex-specific ways," said Umen, who believes they accumulate mutations over time. A beneficial mutations must have lead to larger eggs and smaller, plentiful sperm.

Via: living.oneindia.in