• Question: How do you plan to get donors for the ovaries?

    Asked by elliottlauder to Vicki on 20 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Vicki Onions

      Vicki Onions answered on 20 Jun 2010:


      Hi Elliott
      The work that i do is working with sheep, and the ovarie i use in the lab, I get from a local abattoir (where they put animals down for meat production) – the reproductive tracts aren’t used and are usually thrown away, so i go and collect the ovaries from there.
      When the technique is used in humans, the technique is intended to help women whose ovaries are likely to be damaged by medical treatments e.g. cancer treatments. Therefore the people who donate the ovaries will eventually be getting either the whole ovary or pieces of ovarian tissue back. You can’t really take ovaries from one person (or animal) and put it back into another because you get tissue rejection

Comments