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Jeffrey Keenan (1961- )
Jeffrey Keenan is the Director of the Southeastern Center for Fertility and Reproductive Medicine and the main developer behind the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) in Knoxville, Tennessee. This non-profit organization focuses on embryo donation and embryo adoption.
Format: Articles
Subject: People, Reproduction
Alec Jeffreys’s Experiments to Identify Individuals by Their Beta-globin Genes (1977-1979)
In a series of experiments in the late 1970s, Alec J. Jeffreys in the UK and Richard A. Flavell in the Netherlands developed a technique to detect variations in the DNA of different individuals. They compared fragments of DNA from individuals’ beta-globin genes, which produce a protein in hemoglobin. Previously, to identify biological material, scientists focused on proteins rather than on genes. But evidence about proteins enabled scientists only to exclude, but not to identify, individuals as the sources of the biological samples.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments
“Effect of Vaginal Sildenafil on the Outcome of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) After Multiple IVF Failures Attributed to Poor Endometrial Development” (2002), by Geoffrey Sher and Jeffrey Fisch
Researchers Geoffrey Sher and Jeffrey Fisch gave Viagra, also known as sildenafil, to women undergoing fertility treatment to test whether the medication could improve fertility and pregnancy rates. The researchers proposed that Viagra, typically indicated to treat erectile dysfunction in men, would help women with a history of failed past fertility treatments by thickening their endometrial lining, which is the layer of tissue in the uterus where an embryo implants during pregnancy.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments, Reproduction, Disorders
National Embryo Donation Center
The National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) is a non-profit organization that was established in 2002 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The organization is endorsed and supported by several Christian-based associations such as the Christian Medical Association, Bethany Christian Services, and Baptist Health Systems. Its goal is to provide embryo donation and embryo adoption services in order to utilize the large number of embryos that are being cryopreserved as a result of infertility procedures and are no longer needed.
Format: Articles
Subject: Organizations, Reproduction
Alec John Jeffreys (1950–)
Alec John Jeffreys created a process called DNA fingerprinting in the UK during the twentieth century. For DNA fingerprinting, technicians identify a person as the source of a biological sample by comparing the genetic information contained in the person's DNA to the DNA contained in the sample. Jeffreys developed the technique in the 1980s while at the University of Leicester in Leicester, UK. Jeffreys's technique had immediate applications. In forensic science, DNA fingerprinting enabled police to identify suspects of crimes based on their genetic identities.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Jeffrey Weinzweig's Experiments on In Utero Cleft Palate Repair in Goats (1999-2002)
Jeffrey Weinzweig and his team, in the US at the turn of the twenty-first century, performed a series of experiments on fetal goats to study the feasibility of repairing cleft palates on organisms still in the womb. Weinzweig , a plastic surgeon who specialized in cleft palate repair, and his team developed a method to cause cleft palates in fetal goats that are similar to clefts that occur in human fetuses. Using their goat congenital model, the team developed a method to repair a congenital cleft palate in utero, or in the womb.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments, Disorders
Neonatal Jaundice
Neonatal jaundice is the yellow discoloration of the skin and eyes due to elevated bilirubin levels in the bloodstream of a newborn. Bilirubin is a byproduct of the breakdown of red blood cells. Jaundiced infants are unable to process bilirubin at a normal rate or they have an abnormally high amount of bilirubin in their bloodstream, resulting in a buildup of the yellow colored bilirubin. That build up is called hyperbilirubinemia and is the cause of jaundice.
Format: Articles
Subject: Disorders
Alexandre Lion’s Incubator Charities in Europe (1894–1898)
Alexandre Lion established incubator charities in the late 1890s in France to promote his infant incubator. Lion’s infant incubators kept premature infants warm and improved their chances of survival, but were expensive and not widely used. In order to promote his new technology, Lion displayed incubators that carried premature infants in storefronts and at fairs and expositions throughout Europe. After the public began paying admission to view the infants and incubators, the expositions became incubator charities. Admission fees went directly to the care of the premature infants.
Format: Articles
Subject: Organizations
Pierre Budin (1846-1907)
Pierre Constant Budin worked in France to improve the lives of newborns and their mothers during the late nineteenth century. Budin stressed the importance of proper nutrition in infants and educated new mothers on breastfeeding and infant care. Budin established infant care facilities and created a nutritional check-up system for infants. Budin helped design early artificial nipples, breast pumps, and incubators for premature newborns. He also began the practice of consulting with new mothers after they gave birth, redefining the roles of obstetricians.
Format: Articles
Subject: People, Reproduction
Mary-Claire King (1946– )
Mary-Claire King studied genetics in the US in the twenty-first century. King identified two genes associated with the occurrence of breast cancer, breast cancer 1 (BRCA1) and breast cancer 2 (BRCA2). King showed that mutated BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes cause two types of reproductive cancer, breast and ovarian cancer. Because of King’s discovery, doctors can screen women for the inheritance of mutated BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes to evaluate their risks for breast and ovarian cancer.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
The Role of the Notch Signaling Pathway in Myogenesis
Among other functions, the Notch signaling pathway forestalls the process of myogenesis in animals. The Notch signaling pathway is a pathway in animals by which two adjacent cells within an organism use a protein named Notch to mechanically interact with each other. Myogenesis is the formation of muscle that occurs throughout an animal's development, from embryo to the end of life. The cellular precursors of skeletal muscle originate in somites that form along the dorsal side of the organism.
Format: Articles
Thomson, et al. v. Thompson, et al. (2001)
Thomson, et al. v. Thompson, et al. was a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on 8 May 2001 as Civil Action Number 01-CV-0973. This lawsuit was filed in hopes of gaining injunctive relief against a moratorium on the federal funding of stem cell research. The plaintiffs in the case were seven prominent scientists who performed embryonic stem cell research and three patients: James Thomson, Roger Pedersen, John Gearhart, Douglas Melton, Dan Kaufman, Alan Trounson, Martin Pera, Christopher Reeve, James Cordy, and James Tyree.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
Martin Couney and Incubator Exhibits from 1896 to 1943
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, physician Martin Couney held incubator exhibits to demonstrate the efficacy of infant incubators throughout the US and
Europe. At his exhibits, Couney demonstrated that isolating premature infants in an incubator ward
could significantly decrease premature infant mortality and increased the use of incubators in the
US.
Format: Articles
Subject: Organizations, Places
Jerold Lucey (1926– )
Jerold Lucey studied newborn infants in the United States in the twentieth century. In the 1960s and 1970s, Lucey studied phototherapy as a treatment for jaundice, a condition in infants whose livers cannot excrete broken down red blood cells, called bilirubin, into the bloodstream at a fast enough rate. In addition to his work in jaundice, Lucey was the editor in chief for the journal Pediatrics of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
The Notch Signaling Pathway in Embryogenesis
The Notch signaling pathway is a mechanism in animals by which adjacent cells communicate with each other, conveying spatial information and genetic instructions for the animal's development. All multicellular animals utilize Notch signaling, which contributes to the formation, growth, and development of embryos (embryogenesis). Notch signaling also contributes to the differentiation of embryonic cells into various types of cells into various types of cells, such as neurons.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes
The Role of the Notch signaling pathway in Somitogenesis
Among other functions, the Notch signaling pathway contributes to the development of somites in animals. It involves a cell signaling mechanism with a wide range of functions, including cellular differentiation, and the formation of the embryonic structures (embryogenesis). All multicellular animals use Notch signaling, which is involved in the development, maintenance, and regeneration of a range of tissues. The Notch signaling pathways spans two cells, and consists of receptor proteins, which cross one cell's membrane and interacts with proteins on adjacent cells, called ligands.
Format: Articles
The Infant Incubator in Europe (1860-1890)
In the nineteenth century, obstetricians in Europe began to construct devices to incubate infants in increasingly controlled environments. The infant incubator is a medical device that maintains stable conditions and a germ free environment for premature infants born before the thirty-seventh week of pregnancy. Records show that physicians had used infant incubators since 1835. However, Jean-Louis-Paul Denuce, a physician who worked in Bordeaux, France, first published about incubator technology in 1857.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Butt Out for Baby (2003), by Child and Youth Health, South Australia
Butt Out for Baby was a smoking cessation intervention guide, aimed at community health workers, that the Child and Youth Health group published in 2003. The literature was released as the chief publication of the Butt Out for Baby Project, a multiple-resource smoking cessation program directed toward young parents and pregnant smokers, following the revelation of a relatively high rate of smoking among that group. The authors published the pamphlet in Adelaide, South Australia, and did not credit themselves individually.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
Lap-Chee Tsui (1950-)
Lap-Chee Tsui is a geneticist who discovered the cystic fibrosis (CF) gene, and his research team sequenced human chromosome 7. As the location of the cystic fibrosis gene is now known, it is possible for doctors and specialists to identify in human fetuses the mutation that causes the fatal disease. Tsui's research also outlined the mechanisms for the development of cystic fibrosis, which were previously unknown.
Format: Articles
Subject: People, Reproduction
Amniocentesis Prior to 1980
The extraembryonic membranes that surround and originate from the embryos of vertebrates such as birds, reptiles, and mammals are crucial to their development. They are integral to increasing the surface area of the uterus, forming the chorion (which in turn produces the placenta) and the amnion, respectively. The amnion will ultimately surround the embryo in a fluid-filled amniotic cavity. This amniotic fluid, which cushions and protects the fetus and helps prevent the onset of labor, is sampled in amniocentesis to screen for genetic diseases.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes, Reproduction
The Source-Sink Model
The source-sink model, first proposed by biologist Francis Crick in 1970, is a theoretical system for how morphogens distribute themselves across small fields of early embryonic cells. A morphogen is a substance that determines the fate and phenotype of a group of cells through a concentration gradient of itself across that group. Crick’s theory has been experimentally confirmed with several morphogens, most notably with the protein bicoid , the first discovered morphogen. The model provides a theoretical structure for the understanding of some features of early embryonic development.
Format: Articles
Subject: Theories
Dandy-Walker Syndrome
Dandy-Walker Syndrome is a congenital brain defect in humans characterized by malformations to the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls movement, and to the ventricles, the fluid-filled cavities that surround the cerebellum. The syndrome is named for physicians Walter Dandy and Arthur Walker who described associated signs and symptoms of the syndrome in the 1900s. The malformations often develop during embryonic stages.
Format: Articles
Subject: Disorders
“HeLa Cells 50 Years On: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” (2002), by John R. Masters
Published in 2002, prostate cancer researcher John R. Masters authored a review article HeLa Cells 50 Years On: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly that described the historical and contemporary context of the HeLa cell line in research in Nature Reviews Cancer. The HeLa cell line was one of the first documented immortal cell lines, isolated from cervical cancer patient Henrietta Lacks in 1951 at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. An immortal cell line is a cluster of cells that continuously multiply on their own outside of the original host.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
Light Therapy for Neonatal Jaundice
Light therapy, also called phototherapy, exposes infants with jaundice, a yellowing of the skin and eyes, to artificial or natural light to break down the buildup of bilirubin pigment in the blood. Bilirubin is an orange to red pigment produced when red blood cells break down, which causes infants to turn into a yellowish color. Small amounts of bilirubin in the blood are normal, but when there is an accumulation of excess bilirubin pigment, the body deposits the excess bilirubin in the layer of fat beneath the skin.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Etienne Stephane Tarnier (1828–1897)
Etienne Stephane Tarnier was a physician who worked with premature infants in France during the nineteenth century. He worked at the Maternité Port-Royal in
Paris, France, a hospital for poor pregnant women. Tarnier developed and introduced prototypes of
infant incubators to the Maternité in 1881. Tarnier's incubators became standard in neonatal care,
especially for premature infants, enabling doctors to save many such infants that previously would
have died.
Format: Articles
Subject: People