Overview
- Researchers supplemented eggs with the protein Shugoshin 1 to reinforce chromosome pairing that weakens with age.
- In lab comparisons, eggs showing the separation defect fell from 53% in controls to 29% after treatment, and in women over 35 from 65% to 44%.
- The team also reported an aggregate drop in defective eggs from about 71% to 47% in treated samples.
- The work, linked to Ovo Labs and the Max Planck Institute, used donated eggs from Bourn Hall and was posted as a bioRxiv preprint before a presentation at the British Fertility Conference in Edinburgh.
- Independent experts called the results promising but emphasized required safety assessment, peer review, and clinical trials, noting egg quality is a key driver of age-related IVF failures per HFEA data.