Advances in Assisted Reproduction

Kevin J. Doody M.D.

It has been more than 35 years since Edwards and colleagues first reported on the fertilization and cleavage in vitro of preovulatory human oocytes. In the subsequent decades, we have seen a continued evolution of both the laboratory and clinical applications of this process. More than two decades ago, I was invited to coauthor a manuscript for this very journal. That article was entitled “Advances in Human In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer.” It has been my very great privilege to be able to invite others to contribute to an entire issue devoted to the review of the remarkable milestones that have been more recently passed in this evolutionary journey. More importantly, these current articles give insight into the challenges that the assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) will likely encounter in the upcoming years. Given that ART has become what many would consider to be a mature technology, it seems likely that developments in our understanding of cellular biology and genetics will continue to lead both to incremental and substantial evolution.