The Future of IVF: A Conversation with IVF Physician and Scientist Paolo Rinaudo
Paolo Rinaudo
I missed the milestone. Sometime in 2006, the 3 millionth baby born through in vitro fertilization opened its eyes onto this troubled world. Each year in the United States alone, 40,000 more infants join this long list.
Indeed, the miraculous and once-controversial has now become an essential and acceptable technique for helping infertile couples conceive. But in that march to progress, scientists and doctors like UCSF's Paolo Rinaudo, MD, PhD, have found a certain unevenness in the pavement, a little dip in the asphalt, that has made them look more closely at what they are doing and how they are doing it.
Why? Well, nature's ways are not always easily duplicated. The chemical environment of the fallopian tubes after fertilization is not yet fully known. The life-nurturing environment of the womb is not nailed down, either. What you don't know, you cannot duplicate. And since the scientific literature now hints that in vitro babies have a slightly higher tendency to diabetes, high blood pressure and coronary heart disease, Rinaudo has dedicated his research life to finding the potential cause.
He considers it an honor. After all, he insists, life that starts in a dish deserves all the best — and right — ingredients.
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