Here First - Science and Technology Blog

The world of medicine witnessed a new medical breakthrough: a 7 year old girl was miraculously healed from a serious form of leukemia with a disabled form of HIV. Emma Whitehead was diagnosed with acute form leukemia and she underwent every conventional treatment for long two years. The parents were really desperate at that point, so they agreed to enroll their daughter into an experimental program.  Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have perfected a treatment that will reprogram the immune system, so it will destroy every cancer cell in the body. The treatment is extremely hard, and it almost killed the little girl. But, miraculously, she resisted to the harsh cure. Moreover, her aggressive form of leukemia was cured. 7 months after that treatment phase passed and Emma's condition is still in remission. She was not the only girl who tried this, and the experimental treatment showed amazing results in more adults. The scientists who developed this treatmen...

Scientists have grown eggs from tissue taken from five-year-old girls meaning future childhood cancer sufferers could go on to have children of their own. There is known that children and young people who go through cancer are left infertile by the treatment in most of the cases. They are faced with having to use donated eggs and sperm or adopting to have their own family. The problem is very difficult for children who develop cancer before they reach puberty. The eggs or sperm cannot be freeze at this time. But we have good news! Scientists have managed to grow eggs in the lab using samples of ovarian tissue taken from girls as young as five. Immature eggs can be removed from the tissue and grown to maturity in special culture. The next step will be to see if they can be fertilised to create viable embryos. These could then be frozen and stored for future use or the unfertilised eggs could be frozen using the latest techniques which have proven more effective. Around 1,500 children un...