ABSTRACT
Micromanipulation has added a new dimension to reproductive medicine. It entails the use of microtools that allow for a precise handling and manipulation of single cells or their subcompartments such as the cytoplasm or nucleus. With various types of micropipettes germ cells or parts of them as well as early embryos can be individually selected, held, drilled, cut, injected, or biopsied. The possible applications of this technology in research, diagnosis and therapy are manifold. Cloning of humans, considered to be on the horizon, would also have to rely on these micromanipulative technologies. But even some currently available techniques such as oocyte cytoplasm donation make conventional in vitro fertilisation (IVF) look like an old-fashioned and almost natural way of inducing pregnancies.
