An investigation of women's experiences of an IVF egg sharing scheme for somatic cell nuclear transfer research

This study will investigate the experiences of women donating eggs for stem cell research. In exchange for their eggs, women will receive cheaper IVF treatment.
Stem cell research promises much for the treatment of diseases. Such treatments will be improved if the problem of a patient rejecting stem cells from an unrelated donor can be solved. A technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT: also known as ‘therapeutic cloning’) will help to overcome this difficulty.
More research is required to improve SCNT techniques but there is a shortage of human eggs. Therefore this ‘egg sharing’ scheme has been proposed. This scheme has been approved by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
However, concerns have been raised, including: objections to embryo experimentation; fears that therapeutic cloning will lead to reproductive cloning; views that reduced IVF fees constitute an inappropriate inducement to egg sharers; questions whether egg sharers understand the research to which they are contributing. Therefore it is vital that SCNT research is accompanied by evaluations of its potential benefits and costs.
This study will provide such an evaluation and supply vital evidence to inform the deliberations and practices of policymakers, stem cell scientists, fertility clinicians, and the wider community, worldwide.

This study takes place at a time of rapid developments in human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research and the need for human eggs and embryos for such research. hESC research promises much for future therapies, especially the possibility that patients with diseases resulting from the degeneration of certain cell types (e.g. Alzheimer?s, Parkinson?s, heart and liver disease) will have the chance to replace these cells. Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) research is needed, as transplanting genetically unrelated cell lines into a patient will provoke an immune response. Nuclear reprogramming, through SCNT, and the derivation of stem cell lines, enables the development of patient and disease specific cell lines to avoid this problem. This is achieved by taking out the nucleus from a (donated) human egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus of a somatic cell (e.g. a skin cell) from a patient; when activated, the resulting cell divides and ES cells which are genetically similar to the patient can be derived. There is a shortage of human eggs for this research so an egg sharing scheme, in which IVF patients will be offered reduced fees in exchange for some of their eggs, has been proposed (and approved by the HFEA).

However questions arise over the social and ethical aspects of this work. These include: concerns over embryo experimentation; fears of the ?slippery slope? from therapeutic to reproductive cloning; whether a reduction in IVF fees constitutes an inappropriate inducement to egg sharers; whether egg sharers fully understand the research to which they are contributing. Therefore it is vital that SCNT research is accompanied by robust social and ethical evaluations. The proposed study will provide just such an evaluation by investigating the views, values and experiences of those coming forward to donate eggs, in order to evaluate whether the potential scientific and therapeutic gains from SCNT are achieved at social and ethical costs to egg sharers.

This will be the first empirical study of this subject; it will provide vital evidence to inform the deliberations and practices of policymakers, stem cell scientists, fertility clinicians, and the wider community, in the UK and worldwide. The study will also build upon a current Wellcome Trust funded project investigating the social and ethical aspects of embryo donation for hESC research.