Early embryos can correct genetic abnormalities during development
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 - 09:30
in Biology & Nature
Professor William G. Kearns told the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology that a three-day-old embryo (called a cleavage stage embryo) with an incorrect number of chromosomes (known as "aneuploidy") was capable of undergoing "a dynamic process of genetic normalisation" so that by day five, when it had developed to the blastocyst stage, it had become euploid, with the correct number of chromosomes.