Anne McLaren, the prestigious biologist who made the advancement of in vitro fertilization possible

British scientist Anne McLaren, considered one of the greatest reproductive biology academics of the 20th century, has been honored by Google on the anniversary of her birth.

Through their research, it was shown that healthy embryos could be created that lived outside the mother’s uterus, helping to advance fertilization. in vitro, one of the main assisted reproduction methods today.

Anne Laura Dorinthea McLaren was born in London, England, in 1927, to a family belonging to the nobility of the United Kingdom: she was the daughter of Sir Henry McLaren, Baron d’Aberconway, well-known industrial businessman and liberal parliamentarian, and Christabel macnaughten.

During World War II her parents moved to their residence in Bodnant, Wales, and when she was only seven she played Life after death (Things to Come), a 1936 film directed by William Cameron Menzies, based on a well-known book by George wells, also author of the famous novel War of the Worlds.

As published by the Chair of Scientific Culture at the University of the Basque Country, Spain, growing up, McLaren studied zoology at Oxford and graduated with studies of Drosophila mites. After that he did a postgraduate degree at the University College of London under the teaching of Brazilian Peter Medawar, who went on to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of acquired immune tolerance, the key to organ transplantation.

At the end of her studies, Anne carried out several laboratory investigations on mouse embryos until 1958, she published a short article in the journal Nature which she signed with her colleague. John biggers and, although it was only two pages long, it paved the way for the development of the fertilization in vitro (IVF) and the subsequent birth of Louise brown, who in 1978 became the first person to become pregnant using assisted fertilization techniques.

After her divorce in 1959, the biologist moved with her three children to work at the Institute of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and later joined the Warnock Committee, a government body from which he promoted the assisted reproduction law, according to the University of Cambridge.

In 1992, she became the first woman to be elected vice-president of the eminent Royal Society of Great Britain, the scientific academy with the longest uninterrupted activity in the world, dedicated to the promotion of scientific research for the well-being of humanity.

On the afternoon of July 7, 2007, Anne McLaren died at the age of 80 in a traffic accident on the M11 motorway, north London, when the car in which she was traveling with her partner from long time crashed. Donald michie, 83, an expert in artificial intelligence.

The two had met when they were students at Oxford and were married in 1952. Although they quickly divorced, they always had a very good relationship and together they raised the three children they all had. throughout their marriage.

When he was younger, Donald Michie worked during WWII at Bletchley Park and helped crack German secret codes. After the war, already at the university, he devoted himself to genetic research and it was in this context that he met his wife.

The advancement of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in recent years

In 1978 he was born in England Louise brown, the first daughter conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF), based on a joint work of Professor Robert Edwards and Dr Patrick Steptoe.

The event marked a before and after in this field and gave the opportunity to become fathers to countless men and women around the world. Currently, these processes refer not only to professional progress, but also support social transformations that include late motherhood and new family models.

In Argentina, the first birth obtained from an assisted reproduction technique took place in 1986. A year earlier, Colombia saw the region’s first baby born by IVF.

The physician specializing in assisted reproduction, Fernando Neuspiller, is the director of the Valencian Fertility Institute (IVI) in Buenos Aires and explained that the evolution of assisted reproduction techniques has occurred, mainly, in four aspects:

– Ovarian stimulation: it went from natural cycles to stimulation with gonadotropins, hormones that act on the sex glands and increase the development and obtaining of oocytes, as well as the use of GnRH analogues, which have further perfected these procedures.

– Modifications of the embryology laboratory: fertilization techniques, culture media and incubator technology have evolved, allowing better embryonic development and, consequently, optimization of results.

– New freezing techniques: initially, a technique called “slow freezing” was used. Today, vitrification is used, both of oocytes and embryos, which offers many advantages because, unlike traditional freezing, no ice crystals are formed which can damage the cells, hence the levels of survival and quality of embryos and oocytes are higher.

– Embryo transfer: Previously, more than one embryo was transferred on the second or third day of development, whereas today the goal is to transfer a single embryo at the blastocyst stage. This helps improve pregnancy rates and reduce the risk of medical complications, as statistics show that in the former case, one in four women becomes pregnant with twins, which increases prematurity and can lead to other conditions. unwanted such as maternal bleeding, polyhydramnios (excess amniotic fluid), gestational diabetes and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

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