News

This week, Christina Rozeik, Programme Manager for Cambridge Reproduction accepted the award for the Cambridge Reproduction project Including public voices in policy through a public dialogue on stem cell-based embryo models at The Cambridge Awards 2025. Stem cell-based embryo models offer exciting new opportunities to understand human development …

Cambridge Reproduction are delighted to extend heartfelt congratulations to Professor Ashley Moffett for her award in the New Year Honours 2025 list for services to Women’s Reproductive Health and to Clinical Research and Practice in Africa. As part of the Overseas and International List, Professor Moffett has been appointed a Companion of the Orde…

Cambridge Reproduction, in partnership with the Progress Educational Trust, has led work to create the first ever UK guidelines for the generation and use of stem cell-based embryo models in research. The SCBEM Code of Practice has been developed by a Working Group of experts from a range of institutions across the UK, representing world-leading ex…

A groundbreaking public dialogue on stem cell-based embryo models (SCBEMs) has been published today, comprising the first in-depth exploration of public attitudes towards research involving embryo models in the UK. The dialogue findings will inform development of a new Code of Practice for embryo model research, which will be published in Spring 20…

Cambridge Reproduction network members have grown ‘mini-placentas’ in the lab and used them to see how the placenta develops and interacts with the inner lining of the womb – findings that could help scientists better understand and, in future, potentially treat pre-eclampsia.The study, published today in Cell Stem Cell, shows that it is possible t…

A collaborative study led by Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, joined by Cambridge Reproduction members Prof Gordon Smith and Prof Steve Charnock Jones, has shown why many women experience nausea and vomiting during pregnancy – and why some women, including the Duchess of Cambridge, become so sick they need to be admitted to hospital.The culprit is …

Cambridge researchers have found that women who smoke during pregnancy are 2.6 times more likely to give birth prematurely compared to non-smokers – more than double the previous estimate.The study, published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology, also found that smoking meant that the baby was four times more likely to be small for it…

The findings of a foundational UK public dialogue on human embryo research, run in collaboration with Cambridge Reproduction, have been published.Part of the Wellcome-funded Human Developmental Biology Initiative (HDBI). The HDBI is an ambitious scientific endeavour to advance our understanding of human development. The dialogue project, which was …

Beyond the nuclear family. An unprecedented Fitzwilliam exhibition explores the family, informed by psychological research. Real Families: Stories of Change considers the idea of family through the eyes of artists. Historic works reveal how family life has been portrayed throughout art history while modern and contemporary artists including Tracey …

A study in mice has found that fetuses use a copy of a gene inherited from their dad to force their mum to release as much nutrition as possible during pregnancy.The unborn baby ‘remote controls’ its mother’s metabolism so the two are in a nutritional tug of war. The mother’s body wants the baby to survive but needs to keep enough glucose and fats …

The University of Cambridge has launched a project to develop the first governance framework for research involving stem cell-based human embryo models in the UK.The Governance of Stem Cell-Based Embryo Models (G-SCBEM) project is led by Cambridge Reproduction and brings together scientists, legal scholars and bioethics experts, as well as represen…

Landmark study finds no difference in psychological wellbeing or quality of family relationships between children born by assisted reproduction (egg or sperm donation or surrogacy) and those born naturally at age 20. However, findings suggest that telling children about their biological origins early – before they start school – can be advantageous…

Researchers have mapped the complete trajectory of placental development, helping shed new light on why pregnancy disorders happen.Researchers from the University of Cambridge, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI), Switzerland, EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), and collabor…

Potentially life-saving steroids commonly given to preterm babies also increase the risk of long-term cardiovascular problems, but a new study in rats has found that if given in conjunction with statins, their positive effects remain while the potential negative side-effects are ‘weeded out’.Cambridge scientists gave new-born rats, which are natura…

Why maternal deaths in the UK are risingMarian Knight, University of Oxford and Lisa Hinton, University of CambridgeIn high-income countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands, pregnancy is comparatively safe. But maternal deaths still happen and in places like the UK are increasing. Understanding why is important, not only for the family a woman …