Prospects for human reproductive medicine--applications of experimental techniques used in farm animal breeding.

Can assisted reproduction techniques performed in farm animal breeding be considered as future methods in human sterility treatment? The answer is no because, at the moment, the goals in human and animal reproduction are totally different. The methods that scientists are using or developing for farm animals are either without any therapeutic value for humans or they are forbidden by the German Embryo Protection Law. However, there are a few aspects which might be of value in the future of human assisted reproduction. The technique of in vitro maturation of immature follicles and oocytes, which is prerequisite in animal in vitro fertilization the female gamete pool after slaughter, might be used to obtain mature human oocytes from unstimulated cycles in women who do not respond to hormonal stimulation. Further more, it can be used in cancer patients to save their oocytes shortly before cancer treatment. Although still forbidden at the moment by the Embryo Protection Law, it is possible that the pre-implantation diagnosis of early embryos by the polymerase chain reaction technique after blastomere biopsy will become a valuable tool in preventing genome aberration in future.