ABSTRACT
While great progress has been made in the treatment of infertility by assisted reproduction technologies (ART), the quality of human oocytes retrieved for infertility treatment is still surprisingly low, with only 10-20% of human eggs producing pregnancy. In order to improve treatment, we must better understand how healthy oocytes develop and what can go wrong during oocyte growth and maturation. The ability to grow mature oocytes from immature oocytes in vitro would mean that women would not require the expensive drug regime and monitoring that they currently have to undergo, as this could all be controlled in vitro. However, progress has been slow in developing these techniques for use in women, with the major problem being a lack of knowledge of how the oocyte acquires developmental competence during its growth within the follicle. The overall aim of current research should be to gain an understanding of how to produce quality oocytes and to elucidate the consequences of impaired oocyte health. The key processes required to produce healthy mature oocytes should be identified, as well as the identification of non-invasive markers to distinguish healthy from unhealthy oocytes. Once we have a better understanding of the factors that
are required during development to make a good oocyte, then perhaps we will be able to develop in-vitro growth systems for clinical application.
